Mississippi

Could Mississippi get rid of its state income tax? What Mid-South residents should know

Published

1 year ago

January 22, 2025

Could Mississippi get rid of its state income tax? What Mid-South residents should know

The Mississippi House of Representatives passed a tax cut that would eliminate the state income tax among other measures.

There is uncertainty as to whether the Senate will pass the Bill, as leadership there is considering a different approach to tax cuts. House Bill 1, referred to as the Build Up Mississippi Act, would not go into effect until Fiscal Year 2027 if passed this year.

Here’s what to know about the state’s income tax and what would come of HB 1.

Mississippi state income tax

House Bill No. 1, dubbed the Build Up Mississippi Act, passed with 88 votes. Of them, at least nine were Democrats and two were independents. There were 24 no votes, consisting only of Democrats.

If the Bill is passed by both committees, it would:

Eliminate $2.2 billion in income tax revenues over 10 years. The cut would become active once the state’s income tax is phased down to 4% by Fiscal Year 2027.
Reduce state sales tax on groceries from 7% to 2.5% while adjusting tax structure on other items to offset the costs.
Removes state sales tax diversions to municipalities and replaces it with a local-option 1.5% local sales tax. Cities will have the option to opt-out of this tax structure. Lamar said this will result in local tax revenue increases across the state.
Sales tax collected at 1.5% in counties will be diverted to road and bridge infrastructure needs at the county level.
Add a fuel sales tax of 5% on retail sale of gasoline. This would be in addition to the state fuel tax already imposed. Lamar said this would add $400 million to the state budget, and all of those additional funds would go to the Mississippi Department of Transportation for road and bridge projects.
The $80 million that was going to MDOT per year from gambling revenue will now be headed toward the Public Employee Retirement Systems of Mississippi to address a $25 billion deficit in future retirement benefits.
Establishes a “budget stabilization fund” that will act as a secondary rainy-day fund.

The bill, however, will not include an income tax cut for sex workers in Mississippi, who will be taxed at 5% of their income once the tax cut is fully phased in.

Before voting on the bill, several Democrats questioned whether the tax package would actually end up costing the state more money down the road and causing revenue shortfalls. They also questioned whether moving to a consumption-based economy would result in poorer people paying more money out of pockets because of increases in costs due to the new gas tax and sales tax model.

After 2016 when the state passed several tax cuts, revenue shortfalls ensued, causing former Gov. Phil Bryant to make emergency budget cuts several times. Numerous county Mississippi State Department of Health County offices closed and state grant matches for federally funded infrastructure projects were put at risk.

Under the House plan, sales taxes excluding groceries would essentially amount to 8.5%, which still puts Mississippi at a lower sales tax than its neighbors. Mississippi has an average sales tax of 7.06% when combining state and local taxes.

Arkansas and Tennessee taxes

Arkansas has a state income tax between 2% and 4.40%. Depending on how much a person earns, they can pay more or less in taxes. Here, the sales tax is 6.5%. Combined, local and state sales taxes come out to be about 9.45% which makes it the third most expensive for sales tax. Arkansas’ grocery tax is 0.125% making it the lowest grocery tax of the 13 states that still have one.

Tennessee does not have a state income tax and is one of eight states to not have one. The sales tax in Tennessee is 7% but ends up being about 9.55% when coupled with local sales taxes. This makes Tennessee the second for most expensive sales taxes in the country behind Louisiana with 9.56%. The grocery tax is 4% in Tennessee making it the fifth most expensive state for groceries.

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Mississippi

U.S. Supreme Court Reverses Mississippi Redistricting Order That Ended GOP Supermajority

Published

9 hours ago

May 19, 2026

Press Room

U.S. Supreme Court Reverses Mississippi Redistricting Order That Ended GOP Supermajority

When Johnny DuPree won his Mississippi Senate seat in November 2025, it marked the first time that Hattiesburg residents would have a Black senator representing them in Jackson, even though 51% of the city’s population is Black. For decades, only white Republicans had represented the Hub City’s residents in the upper chamber of the state legislature, with the city long carved out into multiple majority-white districts.

Read the U.S. Supreme Court’s May 18, 2026, decision in Mississippi Board of Election Commissioners v. NAACP

That only changed after a federal court ordered the state to redraw its state legislative districts to create more Black-majority state House and Senate districts across the state. The resulting election in November 2025 ended the Republican supermajority in the state Senate. But on Monday morning, the U.S. Supreme Court reversed that ruling after an appeal.

The Republican-appointed U.S. Supreme Court majority did not explain why it issued the ruling other than saying it was a result of its April 29 Louisiana v. Callais decision, which largely neutralized Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, a law that has long ensured southern states couldn’t lock Black voters out of representation. The court ruled in that case that Louisiana relied too heavily on race when it created the state’s second majority-Black district.

None of the concurring justices offered commentary to give further explanation. Justice Kentaji Brown Jackson was the sole dissenting voice who said she disagreed with the ruling because the Mississippi case deals with “the question of Section 2’s private enforceability,” which the Louisiana ruling “did not address.”

“Thus I see no basis for vacating the lower court’s judgment,” she wrote.

The U.S. Supreme Court remanded the case, originally brought forth by a group of Mississippi voters along with the NAACP, back to the U.S. District for the Southern District of Mississippi for further arguments. The lower federal court will now consider arguments as to whether private individuals may sue to enforce Section 2.

Gov. Tate Reeves celebrated the Supreme Court’s decision on social media, saying it was “another good day for Mississippi and America!” He said the State was taking “thoughtful consideration” regarding legislative, congressional and state Supreme Court redistricting and that redrawing the maps may require further “clarity” from the U.S. Supreme Court.

“The U.S. Supreme Court has again recognized that race may not be considered in drawing legislative maps. They also remanded this case back to the original three-judge panel—an opinion that we believe ultimately results in the 2022 legislative maps being reinstated,” the governor wrote in a Monday social media post. “This opinion and decision is another win for the principle that all Americans are created equal. In Mississippi, we have much more work to do to get our maps fully fixed (in all three areas mentioned above) after years of unconstitutional requirements placed on the state by the lower courts.”

The Mississippi Legislature had to redraw its House and Senate district maps to include more majority-Black districts after a federal court ruled in 2024 that the districts did not offer Black voters equal participation in the political process. The court ruled that the Legislature needs to create more majority-Black districts around DeSoto County in North Mississippi and the City of Hattiesburg in South Mississippi.

The new maps resulted in a special election last November in which Democrats flipped a House seat and flipped two Senate seats, breaking the Republican Senate supermajority. With the new maps, Black lawmakers hold 29% of Mississippi Senate seats and 34% of Mississippi House seats; Black Mississippians make up 38% of the state’s population.

Gov. Tate Reeves, Mississippi Attorney General Lynn Fitch and Mississippi Secretary of State Michael Watson make up the Mississippi Board of Election Commissioners, which wrote the Mississippi Senate District plan and served as defendants in the lawsuit. They had to redraw the Senate map because the three-judge panel rejected the Legislature’s proposed redistricting plans for the Senate on April 15, 2025. The panel approved the Mississippi House’s redistricting proposal.

The panel included federal judges Sul Ozerden and Daniel Jordan of the Southern District of Mississippi’s Northern Division, along with U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit Judge Leslie Southwick. Republican President George W. Bush appointed all three judges.

When creating district maps, officials used the Black voting-age population, or BVAP, to determine how many eligible Black voters reside in each part of the state.

The election board’s revised plan altered Senate districts 1, 2, 11, 19, 44 and 45 by changing the Black voting-age population percentages—the amount of Black voters in the districts. Senate District 2 is the new majority-minority district in north Mississippi, joining Senate District 11, which was already a majority-minority district.

In a Monday statement to the Mississippi Free Press, Mississippi Secretary of State Michael Watson said he is “pleased to see the continued application of the Callais case, which will lead to a more constitutional approach to redistricting.”

The Legislature’s redistricting plan for the Mississippi House gained approval from the three-judge panel. It altered House districts 16, 22, 36, 39, and 41.

Gov. Reeves canceled the Legislature’s special session that was meant to address redrawing the state’s Supreme Court maps following another Voting Rights Act ruling predating Callais, but has said he would like to see lawmakers address maps for judicial, legislative and congressional districts between now and 2027. He said last week that U.S. House Rep. Bennie Thompson’s “reign of terror … is over,” referring to Mississippi’s only Black or Democratic member of Congress.

The Mississippi Free Press contacted Mississippi Attorney General Lynn Fitch’s office for a response to the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling, but did not hear back by press time.

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Judge lets NAACP Jackson ARPA water funding lawsuit move forward

Published

21 hours ago

May 18, 2026

Press Room

Judge lets NAACP Jackson ARPA water funding lawsuit move forward

Wingate rejects standing challenge in Jackson ARPA lawsuit

A federal judge ruled that a lawsuit filed by the NAACP and Jackson residents against Mississippi can proceed.
The lawsuit alleges the state discriminated against the majority-Black city by withholding federal water infrastructure funds.
The state argued the plaintiffs lacked legal standing and filed the lawsuit too late, but the judge affirmed their right to sue.
Plaintiffs claim Mississippi created additional barriers for Jackson to access American Rescue Plan Act funds, worsening the 2022 water crisis.

A federal judge said the NAACP and Jackson residents suing Mississippi over withheld American Rescue Plan Act water infrastructure money have cleared the first major hurdle in their lawsuit against the state.

During a hearing Monday, May 18, U.S. District Judge Henry Wingate announced he had rejected the state’s argument that the plaintiffs lacked legal standing to bring the case, clearing the way for the lawsuit to continue.

The lawsuit was filed by the Jackson branch of the NAACP along with Jackson residents Doris Glasper and Nsombi Lambright. It alleges Mississippi officials discriminated against Jackson, a majority-Black city, through the way they controlled and distributed federal American Rescue Plan Act water infrastructure funding that plaintiffs argue could have helped prevent or lessen the city’s 2022 water crisis.

The hearing was a continuation of arguments first heard Thursday, May 14, where Mississippi attorneys asked Wingate to dismiss the lawsuit on several grounds, including standing, statute of limitations issues and 11th Amendment immunity claims.

But Monday, Wingate said the plaintiffs had met the legal threshold required to keep the case alive.

“This court is persuaded that this lawsuit shall go forward,” Wingate said from the bench. “This court has determined that these plaintiffs, all of them, have standing.”

Wingate said he is still finalizing a written opinion explaining his reasoning and expects to issue one later this week that will address the remaining dismissal arguments as well.

The state had argued the plaintiffs could not directly connect their alleged harms — including boil water notices, low pressure and prolonged water outages — to Mississippi’s handling of ARPA funds. Instead, state attorneys argued those problems stemmed from Jackson’s longstanding water system failures themselves.

The plaintiffs, meanwhile, argued Mississippi created additional barriers specifically for Jackson after lawmakers approved Senate Bill 2822 in 2022, including requiring Jackson’s award money to flow through a separate state-controlled Capital City Water/Sewer Projects Fund. Jackson was the only municipality to have a separate fund.

Attorneys for the plaintiffs also argued that while Jackson was publicly awarded roughly $35.6 million in ARPA funding, much of the money never actually reached the city.

Monday’s hearing focused narrowly on the legal question of whether the NAACP and the two residents had the right to sue in the first place.

Wingate summarized the plaintiffs’ claims in court, saying they alleged Mississippi’s actions “prevented the disbursement of federal funds that had been directed at and allocated to the City of Jackson” and that those delays prolonged residents’ suffering tied to the city’s water problems.

Wingate also noted the NAACP argued its Jackson membership had dropped from roughly 500 members to around 300 members because of the city’s ongoing water problems, which the organization cited as part of its standing argument.

After announcing his ruling on standing, Wingate immediately moved the hearing into arguments over the state’s statute of limitations defense. The hearing recessed for 20 minutes before attorneys resumed arguments on the remaining motions to dismiss.

The next fight: Did the plaintiffs wait too long to sue?

After ruling the plaintiffs had standing, Wingate moved into another major argument from the state: whether the lawsuit was filed too late.

State attorney Lisa Reppeto argued the clock started in April 2022 when the state’s ARPA laws were passed, meaning the lawsuit filed in August 2025 fell outside the three-year statute of limitations.

The state also argued the lawsuit never identified a specific ARPA funding request that was denied by Mississippi.

But Crystal McElrath, an attorney representing the plaintiffs through the Southern Poverty Law Center, pushed back, arguing the alleged discrimination and harms continued well beyond 2022. They pointed to actions taken by state officials in late 2022 and afterward, along with ongoing water-related problems residents say they continue to experience.

McElrath also argued Mississippi intentionally created a separate and confusing process for Jackson’s ARPA money by requiring the funds to flow through a special state-controlled account.

Both Reppeto and McElrath sparred Monday over the “continuing violation doctrine,” a legal argument centered on whether the alleged discrimination happened only when Mississippi passed the ARPA laws in 2022 or whether the state’s later handling of Jackson’s funding kept the clock running for the lawsuit.

“The system itself, the process created, was intentionally designed to prevent the City of Jackson from being able to access those funds,” McElrath said.

Wingate did not immediately rule Monday on the statute of limitations argument.

Charlie Drape, the Jackson beat reporter, has been covering all of the nuances of the Jackson water crisis since 2024.

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Mississippi

Mississippi State’s Roster Rebuild Added Another In-State Piece

Published

2 days ago

May 17, 2026

Press Room

Mississippi State’s Roster Rebuild Added Another In-State Piece

We interrupt your downpour of college baseball news for a reminder that some basketball programs are still building out their roster for next season.

Mississippi State landed a commitment from Ashton Magee on Saturday.

Magee becomes the latest piece in what has turned into a near-total roster rebuild for Mississippi State, and his addition fits the broader theme of what the staff has been chasing this spring.

He’s a 6-7 forward coming off his freshman year at Southern University, where he played steady rotation minutes and showed enough long-term upside to draw interest once he hit the portal. He’ll arrive in Starkville with three seasons of eligibility and the option to redshirt if the staff wants to stretch his development.

The Laurel native and South Jones product didn’t put up big numbers in Baton Rouge, but he played in 31 games and logged 350 minutes as a true freshman.

Magee shot 44.4 percent from the field, averaged 3.0 points and 1.7 rebounds, and got a taste of what a full college season feels like. Southern finished 17-17 and 11-7 in SWAC play, and Magee’s role grew as the year went on.

His path to Mississippi State has already taken a few turns. Magee originally committed to Kansas State out of high school before reopening his recruitment and signing with Southern.

Now he’s back in his home state with a chance to carve out a role on a roster that has plenty of room for new contributors.

And that’s the real context here. Mississippi State returns only one full-time starter in rising senior Josh Hubbard, who will carry the scoring load again.

King Grace is back after playing meaningful minutes as a freshman, and redshirts Cameren Paul and Tee Bartlett will finally get their first real look after sitting last season. Everything else is open. Everything else is up for competition.