REFUND LAWSUIT

State Auditor Margaret Kelly filed suit earlier this year in Cole County Circuit Court in Jefferson City alleging that Gov. Mel Carnahan's administration is underestimating the size of refunds owing to Missouri taxpayers. Carnahan says that next year his administration will refund $147 million. Kelly says the correct figure is more like $600 million.

A circuit judge decided as a matter of procedure that Kelly lacked the requisite legal standing as auditor to make the challenge, and Kelly appealed. A state appeals court has ruled that the lower court judge was wrong and has sent the case back to him to be decided, not on this procedural issue, but rather on the merits.

Kelly also alleges that her office is the one that has the power to declare how state revenues are tabulated. This is crucial for determining the all-important Hancock Amendment issue of "total state revenues." The determination of what constitutes total state revenues goes a very long way indeed to determining how large will be the mandated refunds paid to taxpayers.

It is to be hoped that a ruling on these important issues can be obtained without further delay. The taxes to be refunded are for the 1995 tax year, and because of the cumbersome mechanism of the Hancock Amendment, next year is the earliest they can be paid, although the Carnahan administration was prepared to issue checks in just a few days -- just at his re-election campaign heats up. Waiting longer than absolutely necessary to issue the refunds means an over-taxing state government will have had the interest-free use of taxpayers' money for up to two years.

Meanwhile, last week saw yet another lawsuit filed on a Hancock Amendment issue. This one alleges that paying refunds only to income-tax payers violates the equal protection guarantees of the U.S. Constitution, because it doesn't allow for sales and other taxes paid by low-income and other taxpayers who don't file income tax returns.

We are far from the last twist and turn on the legal front in interpreting the complicated Hancock Amendment.