Kansas legislators pushing for income tax

cuts say they’re willing to tinker with a compromise plan to avoid

a future budget shortfall.

House and Senate negotiators reviewed new projections Monday

showing their compromise plan for cutting sales and income taxes

would create a $161 million budget shortfall by July 2018.

That scenario is more optimistic than an earlier forecast, but

the lead negotiators both said they’d rather avoid any shortfall.

The compromise plan would reduce individual income tax rates,

phase out income taxes for 191,000 businesses and cut the sales tax

to 5.7 percent in July 2013 from its current 6.3 percent.