Kansas’ governor and GOP leaders have a deal on cuts after GOP drops ‘flat’ tax plan

TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — Top Republican legislators and the Democratic governor in Kansas have brokered a deal on cutting taxes after GOP leaders gave up on moving the state to a single-rate personal income tax that the governor strongly opposed.

The Kansas House and Senate were expected to vote on the compromise package Thursday or Friday, and Gov. Laura Kelly was expected to sign it if it reached her desk. The plan would save taxpayers about $1.4 billion over the next three years, but it is smaller than separate plans approved last month by each chamber and smaller than one passed by the Republican-controlled Legislature in January that Kelly vetoed.

GOP leaders wanted to move Kansas to a single personal income tax rate from the three current rates and cut the top rate from its current 5.7%, which Kelly said would benefit the “super wealthy.” The same dispute thwarted major tax cuts in 2023, when a dozen other states cut income tax rates, according to the conservative Tax Foundation.

The compromise plan preserves three personal income tax rates but cuts the top rate to 5.5%. Republican leaders didn’t have the two-thirds majorities necessary to override a Kelly veto of a single-rate plan, thanks to Republican defectors who, as state Senate President Ty Masterson put it Wednesday, “chained themselves to the tree of progressive taxation.”

<bsp-list-loadmore data-module="" class=«PageListStandardB» data-gtm-region=«READ MORE» data-gtm-topic=«No Value» data-show-loadmore=«true» data-gtm-modulestyle=«List B»> <bsp-custom-headline custom-headline=«div»> READ MORE </bsp-custom-headline> <bsp-custom-headline custom-headline=«div»> GOP lawmakers are using the budget to pressure Kansas’ governor on DEI and immigration