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.
(parcel pictured above; click pic for larger)
2019 Assessed value: $817
2015 Assessed value: $1,504
2019 Assessed value: $1,504
2015 Assessed value: $260
2019 Assessed value: $260
TKG COLUMBIA SQUARE LLC
ALL 15 PARCELS known as Hilton Plat 5
(Classified as farmland)
2018 Property tax: $13,665.70
Elvin E. Sapp
2015 Assessed value: $91
2019 Assessed Value: $91
Elvin E. Sapp
2015 Assessed Value: $1,172
2019 Assessed Value: $1,172
Bill and Nancy Laurie
Billionaire Wal-Mart Heirs
Crown Center Farm
2015 Assessed Value: $1,110
2019 Assessed Value: $1,110
Bill and Nancy Laurie
Crown Center Farm
2015 Assessed value: $266
2019 Assessed Value: $266
Bill and Nancy Laurie
Crown Center Farm
2015 Assessed value: $259
2019 Assessed value: $259
Hank Waters
2015 Assessed value: $973
2019 Assessed value: $973
2015 Assessed value: $4,201
2019 Assessed value: $4,201
Jeffrey E. Smith
2015 Assessed value: $289
2019 Assessed value: $289
Michael J. Martin
2006 Ford F 150 Pickup Truck (with body rust)
2018 Assessed value: $2,967.00
2018 Property Tax: $212.92
