Jeff City shows preference for out-of-state businesses
JEFFERSON – Missouri lawmakers failed again to require online sales tax collections, despite declining revenue.
Missouri Budget Director Dan Haug announced general revenue collections dropped from $1.59 billion in April 2019 to $725.2 million this April, a decrease of over 54%.
The state has withheld about $227 million from the 2020 budget, with money taken from higher education, and more cuts are expected due to revenue shortfalls.
Clay County is looking at a 30% drop in monthly revenue for April, possibly as much or more in following months.
A nonpartisan budget policy group, the Missouri Budget Project, found collecting the online sales tax could bring $95 million to the state and $85 million to local governments annually.
Some lawmakers from Ray and Clay counties, all Republicans, wanted to collect the tax, some did not. Much of the online tax would come from out-of-state sellers doing business in Missouri.
But the Republican-led General Assembly – having full knowledge of…