Many Ray County property owners were faced with paying a higher tax bill than anticipated at the close of 2022.

Ray County Tax Assessor Linda Coleman has given some input regarding the tax increase. There are multiple reasons for the real estate and personal property taxes hike, mainly due to vehicle computer chip shortages, increased cost of used vehicles, home data corrections and inflation.

“There is a chip shortage. People are buying used cars for more money,” Coleman said.

“Once people could no longer get newer vehicles because of the chip shortage causing a new vehicle shortage. Then there started to be more of a demand for used cars. Once there was high demand for used cars, then they started pushing the value of the used cars up, which caused our personal property tax to go up,” the assessor explained.

The tax commission told Coleman some of the vehicle values could go up by 36 percent. Therefore, the price of used vehicles escalated and property taxes went up in return, she said.

“We’re supposed to go off of what the National Automotive Dealership Association (NADA) says,” she added.

The assessor’s office is currently assessing and updating home data corrections, she said. Once a home is assessed, the property value is updated and the tax due could be higher or lower, depending upon whether the property is in better or worse condition.

“Actually, data corrections are anywhere between information that we collect from appraisers, real estate agents, Zillow and ownership,” she said.

“We find out certain houses are for sale, then we start doing some digging. We send field staff out to take pictures and stuff. We look on Zillow, realtor.com and on different real estate agencies that post pictures. We do research on that,” Coleman added.

Coleman said the notices for real estate taxes, called ‘impact notices’, are sent out before June 15 every year. For non-real estate personal property tax, residents must visit the assessor’s office to find out or simply just see it when their taxes are due. “For non-real estate, residents don’t get notices unless they come in and check for personal property,” she said.

Coleman explained in 2021-22, the county was 30 percent below value compared to ‘what it was supposed to be,’ she said.

“We are behind 30 percent which means we could go in and increase (the tax due on) most houses, depending on the condition, year and square footage of the house,” Coleman said.

“The additional property tax people owe is not to get ‘extra’ money out of taxpayers, but they are to adjust to account for inflation as well,” she said, reminding residents that 70 percent of tax money from the assessor’s office goes to the schools in the county.

Coleman shared reassessing homes that are put on the market are re-evaluated because sometimes there is work done of which the assessor’s office is unaware.

“Re-assessing is looking to see which houses are selling around our county and what they are selling for. We are way below, like I said — 30 percent below — the market value of what the state says we should be for what houses are selling.”

“The house prices had jacked up so much and people are buying them at a higher value than what we are assessing them for,” Coleman shared.

“For example, maybe a house sold for $300,000 and we maybe have around $200,000 on it,” she explained.

“Because they may have gone in and worked on it and we’re unaware of it. We may be $100,000 under because we were unaware. That’s what we are finding a lot.”

According to tax-rates. org, the median property tax in Ray County is $1,207 per year, based on a median home value of $126,100 and a median effective property tax rate of 0.96 percent of property value.

Ray County’s collection of property tax ranked in the top half of all counties in the United States by property tax collections. Of the 115 counties in Missouri, Ray County is ranked 13th by median property taxes and 11th by median tax as a percentage of home value, as well as by percentage of median income.

Coleman encourages those with questions to call the assessor’s office and she will be able to answer questions. The courthouse is located at 100 W. Main St. and the personal property phone number is 816776-4511.