Proposed changes in the Kansas motor fuel tax and sales tax on groceries affects households in different ways.
As part of a revision to the tax regime in Kansas, a bill proposes to raise the motor fuel tax and reduce the sales tax on most types of groceries. (Restaurant meals would not be affected.) The bill is HB 2237.1 It implements most or all of the elements of a plan called “The Path Forward.”2
Excise taxes (the motor fuel tax) and sales taxes are usually regressive, meaning that their impact is felt most severely by lower-income households.3 Data shows that as income rises, so too does spending on motor fuel and food at home. But the rise in spending is not proportional to income. For example, data from BLS (see below for references) tells us that households in the lowest quintile of income spent an average of $939 per year on motor fuel and oil in 2015. For the highest quintile of households, spending was $3,226.
But when we look at this spending as a percent of household income after taxes, for the lowest quintile spending on motor fuel and oil represents 8.2 percent of income. For the highest quintile, it is 2.3 percent. A similar pattern holds for purchases of food for home consumption.
Because of this relationship, taxes on the sale of gasoline and food affect lower-income households proportionally more. What I have done is to estimate the additional cost, as a percent of after-tax income, of the proposed motor fuel tax. As can be seen in the nearby chart, the additional cost ranges from 0.39 percent of income for the lowest-income households to 0.11 percent for upper-income households. This difference, a factor of 3.5, illustrates the regressive nature of sales taxes, and the gasoline tax is just that — a sales tax.
Show the math
The Bureau of Labor Statistics, a unit of the U.S. Department of Labor,5 has data for household expenditures on gasoline and oil. This data is available for five intervals, or quintiles, of income.6
Then the U.S. Energy Information Administration, the statistical and analytical agency within the U.S. Department of Energy,7 has gasoline prices. It doesn’t have them for Kansas, but it does for the Midwest.8
From these two values, we can calculate the number of gallons of gasoline purchased for each income level. Here, we lose a bit of validity, as the BLS data is for purchases of gasoline and oil. But it’s the data we have, and purchases of gasoline surely dominate purchases of motor oil.
Once we have the number of gallons of gasoline purchased, we multiply by the proposed eleven cents per gallon additional tax. This produces the extra gasoline sales tax cost per household. This is a static calculation and assumes no change in the number of gallons purchased due to the higher cost from the tax, or from any change in gasoline prices for any reason.
Then, the BLS Consumer Expenditure Survey also holds income after taxes for the five income levels. Simple division gives us the percent of household income that the additional tax represents.
The BLS Consumer Expenditure Survey also holds data for spending on food at home for the five income levels. From that, we can multiply by 1.5 percent to estimate the amount saved if sales tax on food falls to five percent from 6.5 percent. As with purchases of gasoline, this is a static calculation and assumes no change in behavior from reduced sales tax on groceries. Simple division gives us the percent of household income that the tax savings represents.
Then, we can subtract the food sales tax savings from the additional gasoline tax costs to produce a net calculation.
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Notes
- Kansas House of Representatives, Committee on Taxation. HB 2237, Concerning taxation; relating to income tax, rates, determination of income, tax credits; motor fuels tax, rates, trip permits, distribution; sales and compensating use tax, food and food ingredients. http://www.kslegislature.org/li/b2017_18/measures/hb2237/. ↩
- Riseupkansas.org. *The Path Forward.” http://riseupkansas.org/the-path-forward/. ↩
- “A regressive tax is a tax imposed in such a manner that the tax rate decreases as the amount subject to taxation increases.” Wikipedia. Regressive tax. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regressive_tax. ↩
- Weeks, Bob. Wichita sales tax hike would hit low income families hardest. https://wichitaliberty.org/wichita-government/wichita-sales-tax-hike-hit-low-income-families-hardest/. ↩
- Bureau of Labor Statistics. About BLS. https://www.bls.gov/bls/infohome.htm. ↩
- Bureau of Labor Statistics. Consumer Expenditure Survey. https://www.bls.gov/cex/. ↩
- Energy Information Administration. Mission and Overview. http://www.eia.gov/about/mission_overview.php. ↩
- Energy Information Administration. Midwest Regular All Formulations Retail Gasoline Prices (Dollars per Gallon). http://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/hist/LeafHandler.ashx?n=PET&s=EMM_EPMR_PTE_R20_DPG&f=A. ↩
Proposed changes in the Kansas motor fuel tax and sales tax on groceries — Bob – What do graphs showing percentages of 1% have to do with proving the tax ‘regressiveness’ for any income group? Whether one is in the upper 20% or lower 20% bracket of income, are not all kansas grocery shoppers painfully aware we are paying almost 10% sales tax for basic, essential foods? Sorry, but if I were your editor, I’d ask for a rewrite to emphasize the social/political impact & why Kansans are not actively demonstrating for change in both law & leadership.