Greene County Collector of Revenue Allen Icet is braced for a “tidal wave.” It happens at the end of every year when Greene County residents pay their real estate and personal property taxes.
There are three ways to pay real estate and personal property taxes in Greene County: online, in person and by mail. The waves come from property owners who prefer to pay in person and by mail.
“There is a group of individuals that cannot wait to pay as soon as possible,” Icet said. “Once the statements hit their mailbox, within a couple of days the number of people standing in line in the cashier’s office goes up.”
That’s the first wave. In the last two weeks of December, Icet and his staff expect a larger wave of residents who pay their bills on deadline. At the same time, the collector generally receives a deluge of checks and statements from people who pay by mail.
“It really ramps up, so it becomes all hands on deck to process both the letters that come in as well as the taxpayers standing in line.”
While most people don’t exactly enjoy writing a check for hundreds or thousands of dollars, Icet said conflicts are minimal.
“Surprisingly, most people are very, very jovial,” Icet said. “You know, the old, ‘Death and taxes are the only two things guaranteed in life,’ and taxes do go support a lot of the infrastructure in the county.”
The Greene County Collector of Revenue’s Office has a staff of nine people: the collector, a deputy collector, and seven persons with the title of “tax collection specialist,” according to Greene County’s 2022 annual budget.
Every property owner’s tax statement contains a breakdown of where their money goes, listing their school district, fire protection district, library tax, tax for Ozarks Technical Community College, plus taxes for senior citizens programs and for the state of Missouri, among others. Each entity has a governing body that sets its tax levy each year.
“Some people will walk into the cashier’s office and say, ‘I don’t have kids in public school; why am I paying?’” Icet said. “We try to explain, first of all, you can’t go anywhere in the state of Missouri and not pay taxes associated with public school.”
Online portal preferred
Icet said the property tax portal on his website went live Nov. 1, and taxpayers made more than $160,000 in payments on the first day of operation. Greene County property owners can go to http://countycollector.com to view their statements and make payments. Online payment is instantaneous, and receipts are immediately available for download.
“I just encourage people to use the online option for all of those various reasons,” Icet said.
The online portal accepts electronic checks, credit cards and debit cards, with an additional fee added for people who make card payments.
Statements are scheduled to be mailed out in the middle of November. After that, Icet expects an influx of people will descend on his office to visit the cashier’s window at Room 107 of the Greene County Historic Courthouse, at 940 North Boonville Avenue in Springfield.
“If a taxpayer has not received their statement by Thanksgiving, I would ask that they would send an email to my office at collectorhelp@greenecountymo.gov,” Icet said. “Some people, unfortunately, think that, ‘If I don’t get a statement, I have no bill,’ and that’s not the way the process works. By state statute, the responsibility falls on the taxpayer to pay the bill.”
On a yearly basis, Icet said the Greene County Collector’s Office will receive about 35,000 to 40,000 statements back from the postal service because taxpayers no longer reside at the addresses the collector has on file. Moving does not absolve the taxpayer of their responsibility.
“People move constantly, so we get thousands of returned letters — wrong address, no forwarding address,” Icet said. “Again, we’re not sure what goes wrong necessarily, but again, it is incumbent on the taxpayer to pay their bill on a timely basis.”
Sticker shock for late model vehicle owners
Greene County Assessor Brent Johnson values all vehicles based on the National Automobile Dealers Association (NADA). Values that appear on property tax bills in 2022 are based on vehicle values as of October 2021.
“Whatever NADA says that vehicle is worth, it’s trade-in — (Johnson) is required by law to use that number, so he has no discretion whatsoever,” Icet said. “We try to inform and educate. Some people don’t like it, but at least they appreciate understanding it.”
In Greene County, Johnson and Icet both said the average increase in personal property tax bills is between 20-30 percent.
“The price of used vehicles has gone up significantly in the last year or two,” Icet said. “NADA just records that number, they don’t input anything other than, ‘Here’s the value of the vehicle.’ As I said, the Assessor’s Office uses that, it gets multiplied by the levy, and here’s your tax bill.”
Real estate assessments occur in odd-numbered years, so 2022 was not a reassessment year. That means for most Greene County property owners, real estate taxes won’t change much. The exception will be for people who made improvements to their properties, like adding a garage or a wooden deck, in such a way that the improvements increase the home’s assessed valuation.
Personal property taxes, especially those imposed on motor vehicles, are a much different story in 2022.
Hands tied by state law
While he vowed to follow the state law at the advice of the Missouri State Tax Commission, Johnson expects some Greene County residents will be upset at having to pay more money to stay current on their cars, trucks and SUVs. The days of a new pickup truck losing value as soon as it rolls off the lot at the dealership seem to be on pause.
“We’ve never ever heard of a value of a vehicle increasing,” Johnson said. “It’s always been decreasing, right? Nationally, the average vehicles decrease 2-3 percent a year, and now we’re looking at increasing more than that, so there is going to be some concern there.”
Johnson said he noticed an increase in the value of new and used vehicles, and sought some comparisons with assessors from other counties.
“A lot of assessors throughout the state of Missouri saw that increase, as well, and we collectively decided to hold those values last year to see if it was a one-time market issue,” Johnson said. “It’s typical of a one-time market correction with prices and supply chain, and so we held that last year. We didn’t increase values.”
The Missouri State Tax Commission took notice of the assessors’ actions, and put out a statewide warning.
“They made sure they reminded us that statutorily we’re required to use the value of NADA,” Johnson said.
Chapter 137 of the Missouri Revised Statutes stipulates assessors must use NADA valuation when assessing vehicles. That’s in spite of the NADA being a nonprofit organization, and in spite of the used car pricing guide falling under the ownership of a private company. J.D. Power and Associates bought the NADA “Used Car Guide” in 2015.
The general public is starting to take notice of the higher vehicle values. Johnson anticipates he will have to explain the situation with the NADA values several times over once the collector’s office mails out statements in mid-November.
“We haven’t seen a huge brushback on tax statements,” Johnson said. “We’ve had a few folks who have been concerned or upset about it, but nothing I would say out of the ordinary. But again, the paper ones haven’t gone out yet.”
Deadline means deadline
Tax payments received after Dec. 31, 2022, incur a 9-percent late penalty plus a 2-percent interest charge.
“If you’re one day late, it can be very painful,” Icet said. “We encourage people to pay early.”
Missouri law leaves the collector zero wiggle room for taxpayers who miss the deadline.
“State statute is very, very black and white on this, the postmark must be applied,” Icet said, adding that it must be the U.S. Postal Service mark, and not the postage mark applied when mail is run through a Pitney Bowes machine that some larger entities use to process mail.
Icet adds that dropping mail into a collection box does not guarantee that mail will be collected and postmarked by the Dec. 31 deadline, so taxpayers who run up against the calendar should brave the holiday lines at their post offices to make sure their statements are hand-stamped before they ship out.
Assessors seek help from state lawmakers
Assessors pay a fee into the Missouri State Assessors Association based on the size of their county. Part of their association membership includes access to the NADA database. Greene County’s 2022 annual budget shows the Assessor’s Office paid $1,700 for access to the NADA database.
Johnson said in total, Missouri assessors paid the NADA close to $100,000 in 2022.
“NADA is looking at increasing it to $500,000-something moving forward, and so there’s a huge increase there and that’s the guide that we use in every county in the state of Missouri to value vehicles,” Johnson said. “Well, a lot of our smaller counties that don’t have budgets to help compensate that cost difference are having issues.”
Johnson said he is working directly with assessors from the city of St. Louis, St. Louis County, Jackson County and St. Charles County to lobby for change.
“We hope that the legislators will listen to the assessors; we’re asking for some different methods to try to value vehicles so we’ll never see this issue with our citizens again,” Johnson said.
It will take action by the Missouri General Assembly, which convenes again in January 2023. Proposed solutions include allowance for different pricing guides or the use of historical valuations over the last three years.
“The [assessors] association decided to look at a different pricing guide, but the tax commission last month informed us — very clearly, again — NADA is the statute,” Johnson said.
