Kansas Income Tax Changes Could Sting
A new tax bite is on its way for some Kansans, and it’s likely to come as a surprise. The increase will cost taxpayers a total of $97 million when they pay their 2015 income taxes.
In last spring’s tumultuous Kansas legislative session, the anguished decision by lawmakers to increase sales and cigarette taxes grabbed everybody’s attention.
But changes to state income tax deductions flew mostly under the public’s radar: Lawmakers lowered the mortgage interest and property tax deductions and repealed the deduction for medical expenses.
Critics are calling those changes a “back-door tax increase,” charging that they will amount to a tax sting for some middle-class taxpayers and a potential burden for some elderly people.
For the 2015 tax year, the state deduction that is allowed for mortgage interest and real estate and personal property taxes is reduced to 50 percent of taxpayers’ federal itemized deductions. The state charitable deduction remains at 100 percent.