When Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback announced his intentions to change the state's tax policy, yet have its overall effect be revenue-neutral, it was easy to predict there would be winners and losers.

While we might have suspected most of the winners would be at the higher end of the spectrum, we didn't imagine all the losers coming from the state's poorest households. Not with 377,000 Kansans already living at or below the federal poverty level. Not when almost 24 percent of Kansas children already living in poverty. Not when Census figures prove those numbers are on the rise.

But here is what the governor's proposed tax reform accomplishes, according to figures from the Kansas Department of Revenue:

* Taxpayers with adjusted gross incomes of $25,000 or less will pay $88 million more in taxes starting in 2013. Forty-one percent of Kansans are in this category, and will pay $156 more on average.

* The remaining 59 percent, about 819,000 filers, will receive decreases. Those with adjusted gross incomes of more than $250,000 will pay almost $111 million less as a group.

To ensure the plan is revenue-neutral, Brownback plans to keep the state's sales tax at 6.3 percent instead of having it drop to 5.7 percent. As poorer people pay a greater percentage of household income on sales tax, they'll get to feel that sting as well. It is about as regressive a plan imaginable.

"It's Robin Hood in reverse," said Senate Minority Leader Anthony Hensley, D-Topeka Democrat. "This is stealing from the poor to give to the rich."

The administration is defending itself by pointing out the large number of affluent and middle-class teenagers working part-time who are included in the under-$25,000 group. Revenue Secretary Nick Jordan also pointed out there will be a "huge, new investment" of $113 million in social service programs to help offset the tax increases for the poor.

The plan calls for eliminating the state's earned income tax credit, which costs in the neighborhood of $90 million. As it's based on a sliding scale, this credit does result in some low-wage earners receiving payments on top of not having any income tax liability. The governor intends to split that $90 million three ways to fund an increased standard income tax deduction, public assistance programs for families, and the state Medicaid program.

But there is a huge disconnect here.

According to Tawny Stottlemire, executive director of the Kansas Association of Community Action Programs: "... Not everybody who benefits from the earned income tax credit is on Medicaid or public assistance."

State Budget Director Steve Anderson indicated a belief the groups overlapped, even though the administration has no data to support the stereotype. What the state does have is a federal study that suggests there are many fraudulent claims for earned income tax credits.

"Depending on the state, the level of abuse was between 25 and 32 percent on EITC returns," Anderson said. To prove his point, he distributed a handout after Brownback's State of the State address that identified six federal lawsuits against tax preparers, none of whom were in Kansas.

We already have witnessed the ability of the Brownback administration to get laws changed by merely claiming rampant fraud exists. Look at the Secretary of State Kris Kobach, for example. We have changed the entire voter registration and identification process by suggesting something could happen.

But the so-called tax reform will prove disastrous for Kansans at the lower end of the economic spectrum. This is what we need to spur economic development? This is how we will make the Sunflower State more competitive for businesses?

This administration is doing nothing but redistributing wealth, the very philosophy most conservatives decry. The governor and his entire administration should be ashamed. Taking food off the table of the working poor in order to fund luxuries for the rich is unconscionable.

As nearly half of working Kansans will be negatively affected by this "trickle-down" approach, we would hope this doesn't have a chance of becoming law. If ever there were a time to get politically active, even if it's merely to call a legislator, this is it. Without protest, the mostly conservative Legislature will make it legal to push even more citizens into poverty.

Editorial by Patrick Lowry

plowry@dailynews.net