A version of the following commentary appeared in the Springfield Business Journal.
When the Emperor was trying to convince Anakin Skywalker to come over to his side in a regional political dispute, he famously told him, “I can feel your anger. It gives you focus. Makes you stronger.” Right now, we could use some of that well-focused anger when deciding on local tax increases in Missouri.
I get it. People hate property taxes. That’s not just conventional political wisdom—there are actually data to back that up. In one poll, 69% of respondents said their local property tax was too high, and 59% said it was unfair. In another poll taken regularly through the years comparing Americans’ views on taxes, the property tax was historically the least-popular tax. However, in the most recent poll (2023), the federal income tax (34%) edged out the local property tax (29%) as the “worst tax.” If you are almost as unpopular as the most hated tax, you are very unpopular. But the property tax does not deserve such contempt.
Other than a small cadre of hard-core political leftists, nobody really “likes” taxes, thankfully. People should be ambivalent about parting with their own money. They should want to get value for their tax dollars and expect that they be spent effectively. Most of all, they should be hesitant to pay higher taxes just because politicians want them to.
Not surprisingly, people like to tax other people more than they like to tax themselves. Because of our Hancock Amendment, residents get to vote on almost all tax increases in Missouri. I have closely followed hundreds of local tax increase campaigns around the state, and every campaign for a new sales tax, new hotel tax, or earnings tax renewal follows the same playbook. “With this tax increase, we can make sure those shoppers/tourists/commuters (pick one) pay their fair share.” Convincing voters that other people are going to help fund their new service is a great way to get voters to fund what the government wants and not what the people need. Voters are more discerning on property tax increases because they know they are going to pay for it, and that’s a good thing.
Municipalities in Missouri depend less on property tax revenues than cities in any other state. That fact would probably surprise many readers. Cities depend heavily on various sales taxes, and our two largest cities depend primarily on local income taxes that also apply to nonresidents. The local governments that depend entirely on property taxes do so because they have no other choice under state law. Trust me, if they had a choice, every school district in the state would be operating a new casino with its own special sales tax right next to the high school.
All taxes impact economic growth. Poorly constructed tax systems that waste money on ineffective projects or corruption are bad for growth. Well-constructed systems that efficiently fund important public needs are good for growth. The trick is to get more of the latter and less of the former. The property tax goes to the local services that people see and use every day. When those services are well run, the tax is capitalized into higher home values, which everyone wants except at tax time. When those local services are poorly run, it hurts the value of your home, which everyone hates (also except at tax time). While any tax can be harmful if set too high, economic research indicates that local property taxes at reasonable levels harm economic growth less than other taxes, particularly destructive local income taxes.
If a local city or school district isn’t providing the services you want for the taxes you are expected to pay, it isn’t that hard to move to a different community. Families move for better school districts all the time. Older people regularly downsize to smaller homes with the resulting lower taxes and, often, within lower-performing school districts (e.g., The Gatesworth in University City). Variances in services and quality in a property tax system give people options to choose what is best for them and their families at different points in their lives. (The senior citizen property tax freezes expanding around the state remove that pressure in a contrived way that hurts communities just as much as it may help individual seniors.)
None of this is to say that the property tax system in Missouri doesn’t need reform. It’s a two-part system: assessments and taxes, and the assessment part definitely needs improvement. Electing the assessors in Jackson County and the City of St. Louis is a good place to start. Agricultural property taxes are all out of whack. The taxes on farmland are too low, while the taxes on grain, livestock, and farm equipment are absurdly inefficient. Local governments probably spend more money calculating the livestock taxes than they receive by collecting them. Business property taxes need reforms to protect commercial property from the same flaws of sales, hotel, and earnings taxes: voters targeting businesses to fund services that primarily benefit residents.
Why do people have a particular disdain for property taxes? Perhaps it’s because it’s the only tax many people pay all at once, so it seems to hurt more. Perhaps people buy into the silly argument that you never really own property if you pay a tax on it. Whatever it is, the fact that people dislike the property tax means voters are more careful about approving property tax hikes than other types of tax increases. As a result, governments need to make stronger arguments and show results to justify property taxes in the first place. The “focused anger” of voters, to paraphrase the Emperor again, is precisely why cities and counties in Missouri should depend more on property taxes, not less.
Hopefully, though, we will stop short of going fully over to the dark side. I can’t even imagine how high the taxes on a fully operational Death Star would be.
