Lyon County’s sales tax bill passed through the Kansas House of Representatives Wednesday morning and now heads to the Senate.
The bill, House Bill 2026, includes taxing permission for Lyon County and for Rawlins County. Both counties exceed their 1 percent sales tax cap.
Rep. Don Hill of Emporia said the bill passed by a vote of 117 to 6. The bill now will be scheduled for a hearing in the Senate Tax Committee.
“It probably won’t happen until the first of next week,” Hill said. “As things move along, probably the best we can hope for is final Senate passage sometime before the end of next week.”
On Aug. 5, voters in Lyon County approved a county-wide 1 percent sales tax, which the county was to begin collecting Oct. 1.
Despite overwhelming voter approval, the sales tax was negated by the state shortly after its passage by voters. The county already has a 1/2 percent sales tax in effect. Lyon County learned from the Department of Revenue that the tax could not be collected because it exceeds the 1 percent sales tax cap for the county.
The county had two options to deal with the sales tax: re-voting the tax to stay within the 1 percent cap or asking for special legislation to gain permission to collect more than the 1 percent cap.
House Bill 2026 states that the county may fix the sales tax rate at 1.5 percent.
For full text of the bill, go to http://www.kslegislature.org/bills/2010/2026.pdf.