NFIB says no to more fuel tax

NFIB-Kansas testified Tuesday against proposals to raise fuel taxes in Kansas.

“Relative to our neighboring states, we have higher gas taxes, but for Nebraska,” said Dan Murray, NFIB-Kansas state director, Dan Murray. “These bills would increase our motor fuels taxes to the level of Nebraska’s or close to it. Certainly, we think that would make small businesses not competitive with neighboring state’s small businesses on the
border.”

Any additional costs would have to be passed on to the consumer.

“When you increase the cost of doing business, whether it be with increases in health insurance premiums or sales taxes, etcetera, that’s all passed on to the end user,” said Murray. “That makes small businesses, particularly on the borders, less competitive than their neighbors. We’ll see a lot of that, particularly in the Johnson County area, where we have a lot of cross-state competition.”

In recent years, the Kansas Legislature has used the bank of KDOT to pay its other bills.

“The transportation fund has a dedicated portion of our retail sales tax that flows into the transportation fund,” said Murray. “What the Legislature has done for the past several years is use that fund as a piggy bank to pay for other state services, to the tune of up to $300 million. The Governor, in her budget this year, recommended taking $200 million from that fund.”

NFIB-Kansas asserts that if the state would use the transportation fund money as intended, it wouldn’t need to raise more fuel taxes.