When you go to the grocery store in 2024, you might notice a slightly smaller tax on your food purchases.
Starting Jan. 1, the state sales tax on grocery food will drop from 4% to 2%. For $100 in groceries, that means $2 less in tax.
The tax cut is the second of three installments in the gradual elimination of the state’s 6.5% sales tax on grocery food. After the Legislature and Gov. Laura Kelly enacted the tax cut in 2022, the food sales tax dropped to 4% in 2023, now it goes to 2% in 2024 and it will hit zero in 2025.
“Our state feeds the world, yet too many Kansans struggle with high costs at the grocery store,” Kelly said in a Dec. 16 tweet. “On January 1, we’re axing the food tax again to give Kansans some much needed relief. No Kansan should have to stress about how they’ll afford to feed their family.”
Kelly said in a Dec. 9 tweet that Kansans saved more than $187 million in taxes on food in 2023, and the savings will exceed $337 million in 2024.
The tax cut only applies to groceries. Restaurant meals will still be taxed at the full 6.5%, as will non-food items at retailers.
Local sales taxes also remain in place. In Topeka, the local sales tax rate is 1.5%. Shawnee County has a 1.35% tax, which includes a 0.65% sales tax for Washburn University and 0.2% for the Gage Park Improvement Authority. Some improvement districts have additional taxes.
Also effective Jan. 1 is a 0.5% reduction in the corporate income tax.
As reported in the Topeka Capital Journal
