To listen to the Show Me Today interview with Missouri House Speaker Pro Tem John Wiemann, click below.
The value of most vehicles goes down, but in Missouri, that’s not what’s happening. Due to a shortage of new vehicles, Missourians are paying a higher annual property tax bill on their vehicles.
Gov. Mike Parson plans to call a special session later this year to ask state lawmakers to pass an income tax cut. Missouri House Speaker Pro Tem John Wiemann, R-O’Fallon, wants the governor to include a fix for the vehicle tax increase.
Missouri House Speaker Pro Tem John Wiemann addresses House colleagues about GM on May 13, 2019 (file photo courtesy of Tim Bommel at House Communications)
“We have a situation that people are going to see a 20% increase in their assessments on their personal property,” he said. “So, with the supply and demand a shortage of new vehicles, it’s caused the supply and demand to increase the value of used vehicles so high that the assessors have to increase the assessments. That results in a higher tax burden on taxpayers. It’s a rare situation that happened but we can fix it.”
Wiemann said he has spoken to the Governor’s Office and his request is under review.
“I believe this is the right thing for us – to go in and modify that provision in the statute where it relies on the National Auto Dealers Association, the NADA guidelines, to modify that to limit it to no greater than maybe the Consumer Price Index for inflation,” he said.
The tax revenue from the assessments mainly goes to schools, fire, library, water and other taxing districts, the Blind Pension Trust Fund and county Development Disability Resource Boards.
Wiemann would like to eliminate the tax altogether but that would take more work.
“The personal property tax issue has really been an issue that’s been boiling up for quite a while with a lot of voters and citizens because it’s not the best kind of tax. At the end of the year, everybody gets their personal property tax and the holidays, people don’t want to spend more money on taxes. But I think it’s important to note that, in order to do that we have to remove it from the Constitution. It has to be voted on by the people. In addition to that, we need to do it in a responsible way. We can’t just eliminate 16% up to 40% of the tax revenue for various taxing districts around the state, unless we can find an alternative revenue source that’s more fair and balanced. Just the fact that people, you buy a car, you pay sales tax on it, and then you’ve got to continue to pay taxes system to have a car. I think most Missourians would love to see that personal property tax go away, but we just have to do it in a responsible way and figure out how we can kind of phase it out and eliminate. There are many other states that don’t have a personal property tax,” said Wiemann.
State Representative Brad Hudson, R-Cape Fair, proposed a fix this year but the legislation died in the Senate.
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