While the City of Saint Louis will soon be 250 years old, the international sport of Chess dates back to at least 1500 years. That got several of our lobbyists and media experts wondering: is the professional idea of chess older than the idea of taxing one’s personal income?

The early forms of the game that became chess come from India before or around the 6th century AD. Some may claim that early civilizations that tithed by offering up their first fruits could count as a concept of taxing personal production. However, Wikipedia takes us to ancient China in the year 10 CE. Emperor Wang Mang slapped his Xin Dynasty with ten percent tax on all profits for professional and skilled labor. Without the benefit of facebook, twitter, or email, it took his citizens only 13 years to overthrow him and repeal such policies.

As chess spread into Persia, and later into Europe, so did the concept of taxing one’s income. If chess can be thought of as a professional sport that simulates the Art of War, then it’s financier with past governments in real war was often the income tax. At least that has often been the excuse, as Britain chose to do in preparation for the Napoleonic Wars in 1798.

Eighteen years later, the war income tax did get repealed, but, true to some halls of government, its memory was not forgotten. Meanwhile, by 1851, London gave the world our first modern chess tournament than was won by a German. Dueling tournaments across European countries helped shape chess as a sport for all kingdoms, cultures, and ages.

Ten years later, America imposed its first personal income tax for, well, you guessed, war again.

The Revenue Act of 1861 charged 3% off all incomes over the near equivalent of $20,000 or more in today’s terms. The fledgling State of Missouri also imposes its first temporary income tax which was quickly-repealed after the Civil War.

As civil war moved to reparation and reconstruction in America, here came the World Chess Championship of 1886 where four matches were played in Saint Louis. This international event featured the civic rise of our great city at a time without any city earnings tax, or tax on a professional athlete’s income.

With prosperity in American from the 1880’s to the 1910’s came a surge in chess as a sport again.

A curious political series of turns then concluded by 1913 with the 16th Amendment that gave Americans their first peacetime income tax. At the State level, Missouri’s income tax table was later applied from the Great Depression time when no one ever expected to have income, in 1931.

As the rules on taxing income shifted when the “wars on prohibition” demanded more government revenues, so did the popularity and focus of the game of chess within the Show Me State.

So, the origin of chess and income taxes may be hard to compare, but their justifications and use between war and peacetimes has certainly been cyclical over the generations. Saint Louis City and Missouri itself may prove pivotal to the next chapter of both subjects, as the City opens a new Hall of Fame while the State tries to end its personal income tax .

In one of our next blogs, we will compare tax tables to chess moves in the context of contemporary history to explore this subject further.

Workers in Kansas City are probably tackling RD-109, or RD-109NR for non-residents, while folks who live or work in St. Louis file Form E-1. Businesses also have to remit an earnings tax on profits. While many companies withhold the 1% tax for employees, any non-resident who worked part of the year outside the city may have overpaid, or may need to pay for work done inside city boundaries. In that case, filing becomes more difficult and it is up to the taxpayer to have documentation to support the dates he or she worked inside or outside the city.

These workers may soon have the opportunity to vote to sunset the city earnings tax. Here’s how that would happen:

The Let Voters Decide petition being circulated across Missouri will place language on the ballot that, if approved by voters, would trigger votes in Kansas City and St. Louis (the only cities in Missouri so far that levy a city earnings tax).

Current law doesn’t sunset the earnings tax, and for St. Louis and Kansas City residents it’s been 63 and 47 years respectively since they were engaged on this question of how best to raise city revenue. City economies, businesses, population, and industry have changed dramatically in the last half-century, so it is time to ask voters if the earnings tax is still the best way to raise revenue. Consider how often people get to vote on their local, state and federal elected officials, and that politicians are typically term-limited after 8 years. That opportunity to chart a different course, air new ideas, or simply reaffirm is what the Let Voters Decide petition aims to extend to Missouri voters.

The Let Voters Decide petition is gathering signatures across the state in order to qualify to place this language on the ballot. If Missouri voters approve that ballot initiative, it would prohibit new earnings taxes from being imposed on workers in communities that do not currently have one; and Kansas City and St. Louis voters would get a local vote every five years to decide if they would like to continue raising city revenue with the 1% earnings tax, or phase the tax out over a decade.

To learn more about Let Voters Decide, visit http://www.letvotersdecide.com, or connect on Facebook or Twitter.

The group, named Let Voters Decide, will soon start gathering the roughly 100,000 voter signatures needed to place the initiative on the November 2010 statewide ballot.

Attorney Marc Ellinger, a spokesman for the new group, explained that various versions of an earnings tax measure had previously been submitted for review by the Secretary of State, but only one of them is to be circulated and ultimately headed to the ballot.

“The statutory initiative measure we will pursue does not automatically repeal the existing earnings taxes in St. Louis and Kansas City,” said Ellinger. “It’s designed to give voters in those cities the right to decide for themselves, in local elections, whether they want to continue the earnings tax in their city or phase it out gradually over a period of ten years. The initiative also prohibits any new local earnings taxes in communities that don’t currently have one, so it protects people in the rest of the state from having a local earnings tax imposed in their city or town.”

With regard to St. Louis and Kansas City, Ellinger explained that the initiative requires local “sunset” votes on the existing 1% earnings tax in each city every five years starting in 2011. The tax would continue as long as the majority of voters continue to approve it in those local votes. If, in a future local election, the majority of local voters in St. Louis or Kansas City vote against continuing the earnings tax, it would be phased out in their city gradually, over a period of ten years, at the rate of one-tenth of a percent per year.

Ellinger said the primary initial funding for the Let Voters Decide campaign has been provided by retired Missouri businessman and philanthropist Rex Sinquefield. Travis H. Brown, who heads up the Pelopidas L.L.C., a consulting firm that represents Sinquefield, will serve as Chairman of Let Voters Decide.

Next weekend, St. Louis, MO hosts the 2009 Major League Baseball All Star Game. The 80th mid-season exhibition will be the first MLB all star game held in Saint Louis since 1966.  The outcome will decide the home field advantage in the 2009 World Series.

Tuesday’s game will bring a sold out crowd to Busch Stadium, along with a weeks worth of events for baseball fans young and old including: All-Star Charity Concert (July 11), the All-Star Charity 5K and First Run (July 12), All-Star Sunday (July 12), the State Farm Home Run Derby (July 13th), and the Meet me in Saint Louis: An All-Star Celebration (July 11-13th).

You don’t even have to attend the game to join the fun with celebrity athletes.  MAB Celebrity Services, based in New Jersey, has come through big for Saint Louis by bringing some of the biggest hall of fame baseball players to Saint Louis.  This will give fans a unique opportunity to get autographs from the all time greats. Among those available will be: Steve Carlton, Bob Gibson, Red Schoendienst, Lou Brock, Tony Gwynn, Reggie Jackson, Ozzie Smith, Darryl Strawberry, and Cardinals legend Stan “The Man” Musial.

The MLB All Star game is not just a sports extravaganza, it also brings an economic boost our Gateway City.  In 2005 and 2006 the All-Star game brought in more than $52 million in economic stimulus to Pittsburgh and Detroit, respectively, and even more to Houston in 2004 ($65 million)!

Stay tuned for more event planning details over the next week.  Great baseball for a great baseball town. 

All rights reserved for the All-Star Game & Logo above are property of Major League Baseball. 2009