Taxes Matter

Faced with a record budget surplus this year (on the order of $14.8 billion U.S.), the territory of Hong Kong announced that it will immediately cut or reduce personal and corporate income tax rates.

What’s amazing is how low Hong Kong’s taxes already are. The corporate income tax rate in Hong Kong is currently 17.5 percent, while the highest marginal personal income tax rate is 20 percent. Compare that to the United States’ 35-percent corporate tax rate, the highest in the world among industrialized nations, and top marginal income tax bracket of 35 percent.

Now consider the Missouri case. Missouri imposes an additional 6.25-percent corporate income tax. That means the total corporate tax burden in Missouri is 41.25 percent. And if you happen to be in St. Louis or Kansas City, the tax bill will be 42.25 percent.

Ask yourself this. If you’re an international corporation, where would you choose to open your doors: Missouri or Hong Kong?

Even among the individual states, would you rather open a new factory in Texas (with no corporate or personal income tax) or Missouri?

These are pretty simple answers. This is how we can bring quality jobs to Missouri.