If you sat down and intentionally tried to come up with the worst tax policy you possibly could, you would want to include the following elements:
- Raising taxes on some people, but not all people;
- Replacing charitable giving with mandatory taxation;
- Creating another obscure taxing authority with little to no oversight;
- Creating services with the new tax that benefit people who specifically do not pay for those services; and
- Directing the entire program of new services at people who are exempt from the tax, and who also happen to be the wealthiest group in society.
This would be about as bad a tax policy program you could imagine, and, voila, this is exactly what voters in St. Louis County get to decide on in November.
Many Missouri counties have a property tax that funds senior services. However, almost all of them passed it before the senior service property tax freezes were put into place, so at least senior citizens paid the taxes that funded the services. That is not how it works in Jackson County, which adopted the tax freeze and then passed the senior service tax in 2024, and is not how it would work in St. Louis County if voters approved this tax. Senior citizens who get the services would be exempt from paying the new tax if they own their home. Yes, seniors who rent would possibly pay the new tax through their rent payments, but keep in mind that many seniors who don’t live on their own live in senior communities, which are sometimes non-profits (entirely, or in part) that also won’t pay the new tax.
It is bad enough that seniors now vote, thanks to the freeze, on tax increases that they don’t have to pay. But to create a new fund specifically to fund senior services from a new tax they (mostly) won’t pay is truly entering the tax policy Twilight Zone. (Note that seniors who own their homes will be exempt from this tax if it passes. People saying it won’t apply in this instance, such as in this story, are wrong.)
