The Columbia Heart Beat

COLUMBIA, Mo 5/8/19 (Feature) --  "Let me tell you about the very rich," the writer F. Scott Fitzgerald said.  "They are different from you and me."

Nowhere is that more true than at property tax reassessment time, when the rich pay about what they always have while you and I pay more -- sometimes, a lot more.  About 44,000 Boone County residents will pay an average eight percent more in property taxes this year, the Columbia Missourian reported. 

But many of the county's richest people won't pay more, County Assessor records show.  They also get a prime tax dodge called the "fake farmland assessment rate" for pricey development property the law says should pay tax at the much higher commercial rate if it's not actually farmed. 

With breaks like these, regardless how many school district levy hikes or tax reassessments, the rich still pay a whole lot less. 

Pictured above is 133 acres billionaire Wal-Mart heirs Stan and Ann Kroenke paid $1.9 million for 20 years ago.  (Click pic for larger).  Across from Mill Creek Elementary School and their estate on Nifong in Columbia‬, the land was stubbed in for development -- sewer, cable, gas, water, power -- years ago.  In 2015, the Kroenkes paid $347 in Boone County property taxes on it. 

In 2018, they paid a whopping $42 more. 

We collected dozens of property tax bills for some of Boone County's richest, most prominent citizens, many of them developers.   This writer pays more property tax for my old pickup truck than most of these wealthy landowners pay for acres of prime land with and without buildings in and around Columbia. 

Click the links to read the bills, the location of each parcel, and other details.