Prior to voting on the CID for 10 Quivira Plaza 3rd ward council rep Jeff Vaught attempted to compare Shawnee with Liberty, MO.
One of the arguments against the CID was that it would increase the sales tax paid on food, since the primary retailer in that shopping center is a grocery store.
Well Mr. Vaught brought out some info that Liberty had multiple CIDs and that two of them had grocery stores.
Something didn't seem right, but I did not have the info at hand. Now I do. Liberty officials were contacted and the information received is very interesting.
In Liberty, when one shops at a grocery store the sales tax on groceries is 3% LESS than non-grocery items. OK, let's break that down. In the two shopping centers he was talking about, the sales tax (with the 1% for their CID) is 8.6%, but on grocery items it is only 5.6%. Prior to the CID the sales taxes would have been 7.6% and 4.6%. So, in Liberty the tax did go up on grocery items, but the total tax paid on them is still quite a bit less than on non-grocery items.
So as to make sure everyone knows what qualifies as a grocery item, Missouri uses the federal guidelines for SNAP (supplemental nutrition assistance program, formerly food stamps). If it is an item that can be purchased with SNAP it qualifies as a grocery item for the reduced sales tax rate. The reduced sales tax rate applies to all individuals not just SNAP recipients.
How come Mr Vaught did not mention the bi-level sales tax in grocery stores there? Curious, did he do his own research or was he spoon fed the info?
