Push to eliminate sales tax on food and groceries in Missouri runs into resistance

By Sawyer Bess

Columbia Missourian

Local officials pushed back this week against a Missouri Senate bill that would end both state and local sales tax on food and grocery items.

State Sen. Mary Elizabeth Coleman, an Arnold Republican, said the bill is an attempt to increase affordability for Missourians as prices rise.

“Missourians are paying more and more for necessities,” Coleman said. “Most of us agree fundamentally that essential services should not be funded on the backs of the poor.”

Coleman said a family of four would save $54 per month with the removal of grocery sales tax.

In support of Coleman’s bill, Amanda Berry, food security policy manager at Empower Missouri, said that families in the lowest income quantile spend 25% of their income on food, whereas families in the highest quantile spend only 5%.

Numerous mayors, county commissioners and other local representatives testified against this bill, emphasizing local reliance on sales taxes.

“Sales taxes, including taxes on the sale of food, is the lifeblood of many Missouri local governments,” said David Dimmitt, mayor of Brentwood. “Local governments do not have income taxes and must survive instead on property taxes and sales taxes.”

Dimmitt also said that because the bulk of property taxes go to schools and other jurisdictions, local governments rely on sales taxes to fund police and fire departments, road repairs, trash and recycling, among many other services.

Leaders from small towns also voiced their reliance on sales tax to fund services. Tara Strain, city administrator of Centralia, said she would also like to decrease food costs for Missourians but warns about unintended consequences of removing local tax on grocery items.

“The elimination of these revenues statewide is estimated to result in over $1 billion in lost local funding,” Strain said. “For cities like mine, that loss would not be abstract, it would directly affect our ability to maintain infrastructure, to respond to emergencies and provide safe and livable communities.”

Strain and other local leaders only spoke against local tax removal, not necessarily the state tax. Missouri’s sales tax on retail sales of food is currently 1%.

“I fundamentally agree with not taxing food, however, I would like to see how the state deals with a hole in their budget first,” said Ike Skelton, Camden County presiding commissioner. “If you want to change the Constitution and allow each county to decide this sort of thing on their own, that might be a great idea.”

A similar bill, sponsored by Democratic state Sen. Patty Lewis of Kansas City, would only remove the state sales tax for groceries. Lewis said 33 other states do not have a sales tax on food.

Various Missouri leaders also supported looking for ways to decrease initial costs of groceries rather than removing the sales tax.

Coleman has spent about seven years working to pass this legislation, which has never been approved by the Senate. In 2026, the Missouri General Assembly is also considering Gov. Mike Kehoe’s plan to remove Missouri’s income tax.

“In the broader fiscal context … with Gov. Kehoe prioritizing the elimination of state income tax, we need to consider ways to restructure state revenue that doesn’t make buying basic necessities nearly impossible,” Berry said.

If passed, Coleman’s bill would remove local sales tax on food over the course of four years, coming to an end in 2031.