(Syndicated to Kansas newspapers April 21, 2014)
Kansas tax revenues appear to have bottomed out after the massive income tax cuts of 2012.
That might be the biggest news from the latest Consensus Revenue Estimate released last week. The consensus reports are released twice a year, generally in April and November.
It took a full tax year of the cuts—remember, almost 200,000 Kansans no longer pay state income tax if their small businesses or corporations are structured just right—to establish that baseline of revenues the state can expect to receive this year and next.
While that discussion of tax rates and revenues is pretty esoteric, we’re probably at the place now where we can actually start looking at what Kansans expect from their state government.