MDN.ORG:
Missouri Digital News
MDN.ORG
Mo. Digital News
Missouri Digital News
MDN.ORG:
Mo. Digital News
MDN.ORG:
Missouri Digital News
MDN.ORG:
Missouri Digital News
MDN.ORG
Mo. Digital News
Missouri Digital News
MDN.ORG:
Mo. Digital News
MDN.ORG:
Missouri Digital News
JEFFERSON CITY - It will be no sooner than late October before millions of dollars in tax refunds can be returned to Missouri taxpayers' pockets.
Cole County Circuit Court Judge Byron Kinder gave parties in the refund case another 25 days to submit briefs on the suit challenging the refund.
At issue is $147 million in Hancock revenue-limit refunds the administration planned to mail out to taxpayers late this summer.
It would be the first refunds trigger by the Hancock provision in the state constitution, which limits the total amount of taxes state government can retain.
The case challenges the Hancock limit's provision limiting the refunds to income-tax payers.
While that case blocks the state's efforts to return tax money, Missouri's Supreme Court heard arguments earlier this week on another case challenging the state's authority to collect $350 million education taxes.
The suit, filed by Rep. Todd Akin, R-St. Louis County, involves the income and corporate tax hikes passed by the legislature in 1993 that totally rewrote the state's school financing system.
The legislature tacked on a provision requiring statewide voter approval for the tax increases -- but only if the Supreme Court effectively upheld the old school-finance law.
Since the 1993 law repealed that old finance law, however, there was no reason for the Supreme Court to consider the validity of the old law -- it no longer existed.
Akin's suit challenges that seemingly hollow referendum clause and, as a result, the entire law itself.