"The Voice of Missouri Business®" Weekly Report - January 12-16, 2026

By Matthew Smith, edited by Ray McCarty

January 16, 2026 - Here is a quick recap of some of our activities on your behalf this week. Today marks the end of the first full week of legislative activity.

Of course, the top story of the week was the Governor Mike Kehoe's State of the State Address in which he unveiled a two-part plan to eliminate income taxes and replace the revenue with expanded sales/use taxes, as well as his budget priorities for the 2027 state fiscal year. You may read more about his address in our article here.

Workers' Compensation - Work must be primary reason for medical treatment (AIM supports)

This week, AIM testified for Rep. Christ’s HB 2375, which strengthens Missouri’s workers compensation by requiring the injured employee to prove the injury and the need for treatment were due to work. In some cases, employees receive workers compensation for preexisting diseases that were not caused by an injury at the workplace. This bill fixes this issue, along with making needed changes to the appeal process and requiring the inclusion of any insurance benefit a worker obtained when determining how much will be paid by worker compensation insurance. HB 2375 was approved by the House Insurance Committee on January 15^th, and the next step is to be heard and passed by a rules committee before it is put on the House calendar for floor debate.

Property Tax Legislation (AIM supports)

In both chambers, we saw many beneficial tax bills that were heard in multiple committees. The legislation included HB 1759 (Rep. McGirl) which lowers the personal property assessments from 33.3% to 30%, HB 1766 (McGirl) which prevents any increase in aggregate valuation of personal property tax from being counted as new construction (and exempt from rollback), HB 1800 (Rep. Matthiesen) which reduced the cap on increases in assessments due to inflation from 5% to 3%, and SB 987 (Sen. Ben Brown) which updates law to ensure a taxpayer who is forced to appeal their assessment rate will recoup the costs of the appeal (lawyer fees etc.). HB 2178 (Rep. Perkins) that changes the property tax appeals process to make the process fairer for taxpayers was also heard in committee. All of these bills make needed updates to property taxes and assessments, and we thank the sponsors of these bills for their leadership on easing the burden of property taxes on Missourians.

Pipeline Property Tax Deduction (AIM supports)

This week, HB 1892 (Rep. Hausman), which updates the rate of depreciation allowed for utility pipelines when determining property taxes, was heard in the House Ways and Means Committee. The State Tax Commission issued a form to be used by county assessors to calculate depreciation in 2013 using a 20-year depreciation schedule. Nearly all (101 of Missouri's 114 counties and the City of St. Louis) used the form, but some county assessors refused to use the 20-year depreciation method. This bill would require all counties to use the 20-year depreciation on such pipelines which will result in lower utility rates to ratepayers in the counties that are currently refusing to use this schedule.

DNR Air Pollution Control Program Funding (AIM supports)

SB 953 (Sen. Bean), was heard in the Senate Agriculture Committee this week as well. This bill is one of AIM’s top priorities this year, as it protects the Air Pollution Control Program (APCP) from going insolvent. The APCP of the Missouri Department of Natural Resources (MDNR) is facing a projected shortfall in revenues supporting the program of around $3 million. As companies reduce pollution, the amount paid for permits decreases while expenses to operate the program are constantly increasing due to inflation. Also, current statutes allow these permit funds to be "swept" into General Revenue, meaning the funds are not available to support the program. AIM testified such sweeping of funds was illogical and deceitful as permit fees are supposed to be used only to support the program. AIM's idea is to stop such sweeping of funds and to earmark a percentage of current sales and use tax revenues collected by utility companies for program support, producing the amount of the projected shortfall. This approach would also provide a hedge against inflation as sales tax revenues generally increase with inflation. If this fund were to go insolvent, businesses would be at risk for longer permitting processes, higher fees, and a scenario where the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) could take over administration of the program, subjecting businesses to federal fees and fines. This would be unacceptable to businesses.

Legal Reform (AIM supports)

This week was also busy with tort reform legislation, which included SB 881 (Sen. Trent), SB 918 (Sen. Burger), and multiple bills in the House General Laws Committee sponsored by Representatives Seitz, Christensen, Costlow, Caton, Voss, and Vernetti.

SB 881 prohibits foreign principal or agents from funding litigation in the State of Missouri. The litigation system in Missouri is bad enough without the capability of foreign entities to fund lawsuits. We should ensure that only citizens of the United States should be able to participate in our litigation process.

SB 918 aligns Missouri's law regarding standards used to evaluate "experts" in state court cases with recent changes to expert witness standards in federal courts. While we aligned the two standards years ago, this bill adopts more recent changes.

Finally, the bills in the House General Laws committee seeks to prevent frivolous lawsuits where trial attorneys are suing businesses because their websites are allegedly not in compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA.) In testimony from several businesses from across Missouri, the Committee heard that one particular opportunistic law firm and one particular plaintiff were responsible for threatening letters sent to businesses demanding settlement under threat of lawsuits for such non-compliance. AIM was pleased to support this legislation and any other bills that protect businesses from frivolous litigation.

Protecting Small Businesses from Local Regulations (AIM supports)

Finally, we supported HB 2085 (Rep. Keathley), which prohibits local governments from banning tobacco products or preventing these products from being flavored. AIM supports this bill because we believe adults should have the right to manage their own health. It is not up to the local government to police individual’s lives and manage their affairs. Further, these regulations would cost jobs and shut down businesses, as it has done to businesses in states that have passed flavor bans.

We intend to provide these legislative updates to you on a weekly basis on Fridays as we track the progress of these and other bills affecting Missouri businesses.