Missouri House Approves Property Tax Bill

Well, this is news that is sure to make David Stokes happy.

Of course, there was a nice little useless addendum (that I’m sure we both oppose) added to it (from the Kansas City Star):

The House committee also added a provision that would provide tax breaks for development of a business park on 6,000 acres owned by Kansas City near the airport. A 500,000-square-foot warehouse slated for development by Trammel Crow, a Dallas real estate developer, is the first of 11 buildings planned for the park.

The tax break would set the building’s tax assessment at the fair market value minus the cost of erecting the building on city-owned land. The Park Hill and Platte County R-3 school districts had protested the tax break, saying it would cripple their ability to generate tax revenue to pay for the additional students that the developments would attract.

It still seems to me that if your house goes up in value, you should pay more in taxes. Unless this bill increases your tax rate when the value of your house declines, it only serves to protect existing homeowners at the expense of new homeowners.