Tax Increment Financing (TIF) has become a common economic developmenttool throughout the United States. TIF takes the new taxes that a...

Columbia city officials have taken a major step toward heavier use of taxpayer subsidies, which already have been proven to fail in Saint Louis and Kansas City.

Cities, counties, school districts, and many other local taxing districts rely on property taxes to fund their operations. For a full review of the details of property assessment and taxation in Missouri, please read Show-Me Institute Policy Study Number 28, “Homes, Taxes and Choices: A Review of Real Estate Assessment and Property Taxation in Missouri.” In Missouri, the local assessor assigns a value to taxable property every two years. Local governments then use those values to set their property tax rates. The rate and value are...

Saint Louis politicians, media, and bloggers have enthusiastically embraced proposed legislation that would create a package of tax credits and other incentives to establish Lambert International Airport as a "China Hub." The idea is that increased trade between Missouri and China could give both the state and city economies a boost.

The Coalition for Missouri’s Future, a group organized to oppose efforts to eliminate Missouri’s income tax and replace it with a more broadly-based sales tax (a.k.a., The Fair Tax), has produced a series of papers questioning the benefits of the switch. The papers — currently there are five — have been written by Brian Schmidt, the former executive director of the Missouri General Assembly’s Joint Committee on Tax Policy, who is now doing private consulting. The papers raise some interesting questions and fair points, but they cannot be...

Before this body is a proposal that would renew a state mandate requiring optometrist or physician eye exams for incoming kindergartners in Missouri’s public schools (Senate Bill 641). The mandate places both a legal and financial burden on Missouri families that only two other states in the country place on their citizens. There are several troubling aspects of the proposal.