Get Full Government Meeting Transcripts, Videos, & Alerts Forever!
Get email alerts on the Property Tax Map topic
No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.
Bill would ask Department of Revenue to add property-tax overlay to sales-tax map; DOR warns of data and cost issues
Summary
Representative Williams proposed adding a personal-property tax overlay to the Department of Revenue sales-tax map to help consumers compare tax burdens by address. DOR officials and committee members raised implementation, data collection and ongoing maintenance costs in testimony.
Representative Williams presented House Bill 411, which would direct the Missouri Department of Revenue to add a personal-property tax feature to its existing sales-tax map so consumers and prospective homebuyers could view property-tax rates and related levy information at an address or district level.
Williams said the current sales-tax map is heavily used and that adding a property-tax overlay would help consumers compare tax burdens when shopping for a home. He provided three weekly click counts from the Department of Revenue’s sales-tax tool (16,680; 16,157; 17,851 for successive weeks cited in committee testimony) to illustrate public use.
Department of Revenue legislative staff told the committee the map already exists for sales tax and that officials are working to make it more visible on the department homepage. But the department raised concerns about data availability and enforcement: property-tax boundaries and levy rates are provided by more than 2,600 taxing jurisdictions and some counties lack readily exportable GIS and assessment data. DOR staff said collecting and normalizing the data would require a vendor-build and cited a draft estimate in the hearing record of roughly $6 million for initial development and about $3 million annually to maintain and update the overlay; staff said the fiscal note needs clearer definition about whether the bill would require levy-only rates or parcel-level assessed-value mappings.
Committee members discussed phased approaches and whether the state could source levy data from existing pro forma filings at county auditor or collector offices to reduce costs. Lawmakers expressed support for transparency but also concern about up-front costs and the ongoing update burden: many taxing jurisdictions change levy rates annually, the DOR staff said.
The committee did not vote on the bill; members asked staff and sponsors to work through the technical scope and fiscal notes.
