State Sen. Jeff Melcher, R-Leawood, is at it again, attempting to get more tax money from the agriculture sector to help offset the lingering multimillion-dollar shortfall in the state’s budget. For some reason, Melcher doesn’t think farmers pay their fair share.
"The folks in the high-populated areas, we have borne the burden of the government," Melcher said, adding that agriculture producers "don’t know how easy they’ve had it."
Really? Obviously, he doesn’t understand the unique situation farmers are in or their role in feeding not just Kansas but the world cheaply and efficiently. He also doesn’t know what the lingering drought has done to farm income or how a farmer’s livelihood can be wiped out with just one hailstorm.
He eyes those vast acres of farmland as the means to plugging the $400 million hole that the Legislature created when it did away with income tax for many businesses and individuals. And, yes, that includes farmers.
But Melcher doesn’t realize the difference in taxes on land. His latest get-rich-quick scheme for the Legislature calls for a $3-an-acre excise tax on land, which would generate $150 million. That would cost his urban friends who have an acre of land just $3 more, while it would cost a farmer with 1,000 acres $3,000.
He has already proposed legislation that would change how land is appraised, which targets 46 million acres of farmland that would raise $173 million in property taxes for the state and $717 million for counties, school districts and local communities. It would put on the backs of farmers a 473 percent increase on farmland values.
What he fails to realize is that farmers earn their income off that land. If they don’t harvest a crop or harvest a bad one because of drought, hail, various diseases or insects or whatever, they don’t have any money to pay those increased taxes. Those are problems urban areas don’t have.
Pawnee County farmer Tom Giessel contends just that and also offers an easy solution.
"What I hate is when you start shifting tax on property especially farmland. It creates problems. Farmland doesn’t always produce," Giessel said. "They need to reinstate income taxes. Lawmakers need to close this chapter on that great experiment."
Melcher counters that farmers need to "step to the plate." Maybe so, but his approach illustrates that property doesn’t generate income, and it’s the income tax that makes the most sense for farmers as it does for other businesses and individuals.
If the plethora of tax increases proposed occurs, Melcher and his cohorts might just find their plates are empty.
