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TOPEKA — Members of the House Taxation Committee were urged to postpone adding any tax cuts or exemptions for at least three years to allow for a review of the state's tax policies.

Revenue Secretary Joan Wagnon told lawmakers that the state's tax base has slowly been whittled away over the past 25 years by a growing number of exemptions and abatements.

The value of sales tax exemptions is now double what the state collects in sales tax receipts, Wagnon said.

"At a time when our government is failing to meet the state's needs, just say: No," Wagnon told committee members.

Wagnon as chair of the House Taxation Committee in the 1990s unsuccessfully carried a bill on the House floor that would have repealed most of the sales tax exemptions existing at that time.