SWISS – A proposed Missouri constitutional amendment that would eliminate the state income tax will be the focus of a public forum Friday, July 10, at Swiss Evangelical & Reformed Church.

The 6 p.m. event is being sponsored by Mo Tax Relief Now, an organization formed several years ago to promote reducing the tax burden. House Joint Resolution 173, which was placed on the Aug. 4 ballot as Amendment 5, would phase out the state’s income tax and replace it with a sales tax on goods and services.

Dennis Ganahl, a St. Louis County resident, is founder and chief executive officer of Mo Tax Relief Now and told the Gasconade County Republican that reducing and ultimately eliminating the income tax is necessary for Missouri to remain competitive with surrounding states. “The economy is stagnant. We’re not keeping up with the states around us,” he said in a Monday interview with the newspaper.

Ganahl noted that Missouri is seeing many of its residents move to Tennessee, a state with no income tax. Granahl started the organization in 2007 and worked to whittle the income tax from 6 percent to the current 4.7 percent. He believes Amendment 5 can reduce the tax to 0 percent within five to seven years.

One recent estimate out of Jefferson City is that totally eliminating the income tax would put a $9-billion hole in the state’s $50-billion budget. But Granahl says he’s confident a sales tax on services would be able to compensate for the revenue lost through the elimination of the income tax. He pointed out that not everything would be subject to a sales tax, saying that Gov. Mike Kehoe wants exemptions for real estate sales, healthcare services and agriculture-related purchases.

Mo Tax Relief Now had become dormant in the past decade, but was jump-started in recent years as the tax burden increased and the call to cut taxes became more pronounced. “I brought it back about four years ago because taxes have just gotten so out of whack,” Granahl said. The income tax burden is particularly onerous, he said. “Eighty percent of Missourians are paying some amount of income tax,” he noted.