Some aspects of the property tax system are confusing to many taxpayers. It is important that all taxpayers affected by property taxes and by reassessment understand the process and how it may affect them. This information is designed to answer more common questions about assessment and reassessment.
Assessment is the process of placing value on a property for the purpose of property taxation. Personal Property is any property that is not real property, that is not permanently affixed to or part of real estate. Some of the personal property included for taxation is cars, trucks, boats, farm equipment, and boat docks. There is some personal property that is exempt however, including household goods, inventories, wearing apparel and items of personal use and adornment.
Personal property is assessed based on market value. Market value is the price the property would bring when offered for sale by a person who is willing but not obligated to sell it, and is bought by a person who is willing to purchase it but who is not forced to do so. Once the market value has been determined, the assessor calculates a percentage of that value to arrive at the
. The percentages vary depending on the type of property. Cars, trucks, boats and most other personal property is assessed at 33 1/3 %. Farm equipment and livestock is assessed at 12%. Historic vehicles are assessed at 5%.
As an example, a vehicle with a market value of $10,000 would be assessed at 33 1/3% or $3,333.
The assessor sends out blank assessment forms early each year. It is your responsibility to send a completed form to the assessor by March 1, listing all the taxable personal property you owned as of January 1. Be sure to list the years of all of your property and fill out the blanks completely. We cannot assess your property properly without all of the information requested on the form filled in for each item you list. You cannot put "same as last year" on the form and expect us to assess you. This would be considered an incomplete form and would be returned to you. If you form is late, the penalty ranges from $10 to $100, depending on the amount of valuation involved. The assessor may contact you to follow up if the form is not complete or if they have not received the form by March 1.
Once everything has been assessed, the collector comes up with an actual dollar amount based on your individual tax levy. Taney County has about 30 different tax levies total. We determine your levy by locating your residence within the county. Once your levy has been established we take that dollar amount and multiply it against your total assessed value. The amount taxed is your tax levy multiplied once for every one hundred dollars of the total assessed value.
Once your levy district has been determined, that levy amount is multiplied against your assessed value to determine your tax.
Your tax dollars support several different taxing entities. The levy you pay is based on where you live. If you live in a city, you pay city tax. If you live at a rural address, you might pay fire tax. Every taxpayer pays a school, state, fire, health & handicap tax.
If you still have questions, please don't hesitate to call or come by the office. We will be happy to answer any questions that you may have regarding Personal Property Tax. Our office hours are 8:00 A.M. to 5:00 P.M. Monday through Friday.