KANSAS CITY, Mo. — The Kansas City, Missouri, City Council outlined its major legislative priorities and positions on various matters for the Missouri General Assembly’s 2024 session, including its stance on gender equity in taxation.
This particular stance means the council plans to support efforts to “exempt diapers and menstrual products from sales tax.”
Both diapers and period products are taxed at 4.225%, and this particular tax is known as a luxury tax, which is a tax on items deemed “non-essential.”
In April, the Missouri Senate passed bills to exempt firearms and ammunition from sales tax, as well as diapers and period products.
However, this tax still remains on both diapers and period products going into 2024.
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KSHB 41’s Elyse Schoenig reported on individuals and organizations impacted by the sales tax on period products like pads and tampons, as this remains a point of concern as the new year approaches.
It’s also something advocates and impacted individuals needing diapers want to see removed as well.
“Our goal is to get the sales tax, at least the luxury sales tax, removed from diapers in 2024,” said Susan Berger Angulo, the co-executive director and development director at Happy Bottoms.
Happy Bottoms is a diaper bank housed in Kansas City that distributes across the area in Missouri and Kansas.
“This will be our third year going to our state representatives and our state senators to try to get that sales tax either eliminated, which is what many states have done, but even if we could get it reduced, it would be a win,” Berger Angulo said.
Berger Angulo said she’s seen a significant increase in need over the past year, something she attributes to families seeking relief after COVID-19 funding ended.
It’s why she says Happy Bottoms has stepped up to offer some relief in the form of free diapers.
“It’s not necessarily giving poor families relief, it’s giving everyone in our community relief to not have to pay sales tax,” she said.
On a monthly basis, she says Happy Bottoms serves over 5,100 families a month, which equates to 360,000 diapers out the door each month.
The organization itself purchases the majority of the diapers it distributes, but because they are a part of the National Diaper Bank Network, they can purchase them at a reduced cost without the sales tax.
That means the ability for Happy Bottoms to buy double or triple what an individual shopping at a store could buy, which is Berger Angulo believes they’ve seen a 47% increase in families needing their services over the last six months and an overall increase since she started with the organization in 2019.
“The need in our community is greater, wider and deeper than ever before,” she said. “When I first started, we were giving out a little less than two million diapers a year, and at the end of December of this year of 2023, we will have distributed over 3.1 million diapers into our community.”
Happy Bottoms has 67 partner agencies with locations across Missouri and Kansas. One of those organizations is the Community Assistance Council in South Kansas City.
This nonprofit offers a variety of services, including free diapers, a food pantry, as well as rent and utility assistance.
“We receive about 300 requests for assistance a week, and no, we don’t have the capacity to meet those demands,” said Rachel Casey, the executive director at the CAC.
She says her organization is seeing the same increase in need Happy Bottoms is seeing, but that it doesn’t plan to stop trying to provide help.
“Fortunately for food, diapers, we can usually meet what people are coming to us for, but we know there’s always more need out in the community,” Casey said.
Kiera Stephens has been coming to the CAC for the past year. She’s been living in Kansas City for half her life, but she didn’t know the CAC existed right down the street from her until she searched online.
An increase of awareness about CAC's services is something Casey believes can help reach more people like Stephens.
“When I found out they were giving out diapers and food at the community center, I was so grateful, I was like, ‘Why not sign up, and I need it,’” Stephens said.
Stephens has four kids, one of whom still needs diapers. But she says parenting that many people means constantly needing more than one thing.
“We have so many bills, car, other stuff to pay, stuff like that,” Stephens said. "Diapers is essential, my baby needs it, and it’s like, 'Why would you tax that?'"
Casey says by providing things like free food and diapers, CAC can help to shorten that laundry list of items families like Stephens’ face so they won’t have to stress about the price of items like diapers.
“That’s on top of childcare, which is a huge expense, and it’s really a barrier to economic stability for so many of our families,” Casey said.
Every family Happy Bottoms distributes diapers to gets to take home 50 diapers a month.
Stephens says that’s just enough for her two-year-old son to use before she needs to come back the next month.
While she says she’s grateful for the help Happy Bottoms and the CAC provide, she wishes people understood how essential their services are for people like her.
“I need this food and I need these diapers,” she said. “Kids are very expensive, especially that I have four.”
Stories like Stephens’ are why Happy Bottoms has decided to increase the number of diapers families can take home from 50 to 75 a month.
“We’re happy that people are giving and have the hearts to give these essentials that we need,” Stephens said.
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