By Gene Meyer
January, 28, 2010

(KansasReporter) TOPEKA, Kan. - Kansas needs to seriously simplify its tax codes - and perhaps scrap state income taxes - to treat taxpayers more fairly and to become more economically competitive, state House Speaker Pro Tem Arlen Siegfreid, said Thursday.

Siegfreid, an Olathe Republican and second highest ranking officer in the Kansas House, has introduced a bill to create a two-year joint Senate-House special committee to examine the state's current tax structure and how it affects different parts of the economy, and consider replacing it with either a simple flat tax or or one based on taxing consumption.

Either way, the goal would be the same, Siegfreid, who also is a member of the House Taxation committee, told fellow members of that committee.

"Kansas is considered an average state on taxes," Siegfreid said. "I want it to be exceptional.

"If we broaden our tax base and lower the rates, Kansas will benefit," he said.

Specifically, Siegfreid's proposed legislation would create an 11-member committee of legislators and economists from the state's three largest Regents universities to examine the state's current web of income, sales and other taxes and their possible replacement with a far simpler system in which more Kansans would pay taxes, but at lower rates than now. Kansas' per capita tax collections currently rank about twenty first in the nation, according to the Tax Policy Center in Washington.

Kansas' more immediate problem is that taxes in the state are second highest among neighboring and nearby states with which it most directly competes, Siegfreid told fellow tax committee members.

"We need to change that. We need to simplify. Citizens and businesses should be able to understand quickly and easily how much they will be taxed," Siegfreid said.

State Rep. Gene Rardin, an Overland Park Democrat, questioned whether the proposed goals of the committee might predjudice the group's eventual findings.

"I'm a little concerned that you start with a preconceived idea of the end result," he told Siegfreid.

"If by preconceived idea, you mean seeking a broader, lower tax structure, that's culled from years of experience (with tax legislation)" Siegfreid countered.

Broader tax bases and lower rates have been goals of both Kansas' legislative and executive branches over the years, he added.

Even Taxation committee chairman state Rep. Richard Carlson, a St. Marys Republican, who normally doesn't voice personal opinions on proposals heard by the committee, weighed in on the question.

Many tax proposals that legislators hear are highly specific, often technical pieces of proposed legislation sought by specific groups.

Sometimes, Carlson said, "it's important to look beyond the trees to see how these things affect the people of Kansas."