Date: January 29, 2025
To: Senator Brown and The Senate Economic and Workforce Development Committee
From: Christine Woody, Food Security Policy Manager, Empower Missouri
Re: SB 67
Good morning and thank you Members of the Committee for allowing me to speak today. My name is Christine Woody and I am the Food Security Policy manager for Empower Missouri. We are a statewide non-profit organization that leads a statewide coalition on food security and food access. Many of our coalition members work for or volunteer for food pantries in Missouri. These charities are one of the first lines of help for those struggling with food insecurity in our state. Each of these pantries rely on donations of food and money to be able to provide for the thousands of individuals that come through their doors every month.
For many years the Missouri Donated Food Tax Credit has allowed food pantries a way to incentivize donors to give. Currently there is $1.75 million dollars available in this fund. For the past few years that cap has been reached and that is when the problem has begun. Once the fund is depleted, everyone who applied for the fund will only get an apportioned credit (less than what they applied for or were expecting). This difference in expectation and reality ends up being taxes still owed to the state, and rightly so. Of course, those taxes should be paid, but the problem lies in what happens next.
Instead of letting the taxpayer know they still owe some taxes and providing them some time to make that payment, the state automatically hits them with late charges and interest. This is penalizing people whose goal was to help alleviate hunger. These late charges and interest charges discourage donors from donating again and in the end hurt the very nonprofits and the very people this tax credit was intended to help in the first place.
Senate Bill 67 would not relieve the taxpayer from paying the taxes they owe but gives them time to pay it without imposing additional fees or interest. It really is the only fair and just thing to do for taxpayers and food pantries.
On behalf of all of the members of our coalition, I am urging you to pass this bill through the committee.
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