We have a few rocket Captains from Missourah on here....
I ran into a little problem. You know that pesky tax declaration form they make you fill out and send in by March 1st? If you declared your Rocket last year (Owned it on Jan. 1, 2005) your tax statement is probably wrong. Oh, you filled it out correctly, it turns out the State of Missouri has no listing for a motorcycle called a Triumph Rocket III with a displacement of 2300 cc's manufactured in 2004, 2005, or 2006. So they changed it for me and magically turned it into a 200? Triumph Trophy 1200 cc's instead of doing 5 minutes of research.
You probably wouldn't have noticed this unless you paid close attention to this year's Tax Declaration form (This is how I caught it) or even worse... you could wait until you try to get 2006 tags for it in April, and of course you will get blown out on that deal.
I had to have mine manually entered and the state's computers would not take a description. All we could get in was Triumph, 2300 cc's, 2005 with the correct VIN. They then had to call the state to see at what rate they should tax it, and the moron on the other end of the phone just guessed. Well, if you are going to guess, be sure and guess high, no wait, be sure and guess way high. I had to hack up another $300 plus interest and penalties on top of what I already paid for the fictitious Trophy. Since they break this down as a "levy" you can't really see what you are paying for what, but I am guessing at this point I am paying $500 to $600 personal property tax for one year. Of course... this is based on living in Jackson County... your county will be different and I sure hope you don't live in St. Louis. Yikes....
Two things I learned while I was down at the Tax office. It seems that there was a loophole of sorts in the personal property tax system. It turns out that some people just flat out don't ever pay their taxes. I guess they steal other people's license plates or stickers and they never get caught as long as they don't get pulled over by the Police for a traffic violation. Some people owe back taxes for a number of years, plus penalties and interest. Some go back 2, 3 5, or 7 years or more. They owe thousands of dollars. It turns out that the State of Missouri's computers only linked someone to their past history if they have their name AND address. Well... almost everybody has a name. So you tell the tax clerk a bogus previous address or an out of state address. The computer couldn't bring up your history so they only charge you for the previous year... not the past 7 years that you actually owe. They closed this loophole... if you have no previous address they take you to the Tax window and do a complete background check on you WITH THEIR SHINY NEW COMPUTER hooked up to a national data base. There is a State Trooper there to assist you if you have any questions.... They were pulling close to 8 out of 10 people out of the license plate renewal line over to be "interrogated". It turns out I was the only one in the entire state that didn't know about this loophole.... Pay up you @#*&!@!!!
The second thing that is new downtown is the declaration of sale that you have to file in 30 days if you SELL a vehicle. Not buy... but sell. Lets say I sell a truck to Joe Blow for $5000. I file the form stating the sale price (why would I lie... I don't get taxed on it and I don't want to go to jail). Joe Blow fills in the sale amount as $500 to avoid sales tax. (The old open title trick). The state's shiny new computer compares these amounts based on the VIN and then the nice Hi-way Patrol guy comes over to have a chat with Joe Blow. Pay up you @#*&!@!!!
Maybe if they collect the proper amount from all of these people may taxes will go down....Yeah... right
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