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Hannibal Republican wants to provide personal property tax relief to Missourians

A Republican lawmaker has filed legislation intending to provide tax relief to Missourians. 

The bill from Representative Louis Riggs of northeastern Missouri’s Hannibal would provide an income tax deduction for every dollar paid in personal property tax. 

He admits it would cost the state around 100-million-dollars in revenue, but:

“If folks who are paying Missouri taxes were able to take a dollar-for-dollar deduction, what they pay in terms of personal property off their Missouri 1040, the cost savings are considerable. Now, would everybody qualify?”  Riggs went on to say:  “Don’t know, I’m not a tax preparer. But the folks I talked to, lots of them out there, are looking for some measure of relief from these personal property taxes.”

There’s only one problem – the cost to enact such a measure would be about 100-million-dollars…

Riggs told Newstalk KZRG:  “We also need to take a very deep dive into what we’re doing with our budget itself as far as the fulltime equivalent folks we fund, who are not doing the jobs. These aren’t ghost employees. These are just positions that have not been filled for a long time and that will not be for the foreseeable future. Why budget for that?”

Riggs also says performance audits across all state departments would help evaluate what is and isn’t needed. 

The bill could be heard before a committee in the near future.

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