Ozark County’s commissioners have voted to place a sales tax measure on the April 5 General Municipal Election ballot.
The Ozark County Times reports if approved, the measure would allow Ozark County to receive tax on goods purchased by county residents through websites and other online options. The tax would then be used by the county for its various services, which may include road maintenance, improving sheriff’s office services, ambulance services, or other county business.
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Turner says sales trends continue to move toward more online sales all the time, and if the measure doesn’t pass, the county could be in bad shape in a few years.
“In the future, I can see a time when people will purchase 75% of they buy offline, and they won’t even shop in the grocery stores or hardware stores … if we don’t get ahead of this, we’re going to start losing money and have to curtail services, whether that be roads or law enforcement or ambulance or whatever,” he explained.
Turner says the measure will also help level the playing field between local businesses like Town and Country and large online retailers like Amazon.
“If Town and County has 25 or 30 employees, and they are out there trying to sell the same roll of paper towels that you buy off the internet and don’t pay any taxes for, it’s tough for them,” Turner says.
Howell County and other surrounding counties have passed the use tax, Turner says.
The commissioners say it’s hard to estimate how much sales tax revenue would increase in the county if the measure passes, because when it receives tax funds from the Missouri Department of Revenue, the county doesn’t receive an itemized breakdown of how the revenue was derived.
A similar measure, which is referred to as a “local use tax,” was put on the ballot by the county during the April 7, 2020, General Municipal Election. It was voted down 786 to 373.
The county says part of the issue with the ballot measure then was confusion about what a use tax is. At that point, it was referred to as an “internet use tax,” and many residents mistakenly thought the measure would tax people for internet service or for somehow using the internet. The confusion was seen statewide, as other counties also attempted to pass the measure in their areas.
The legal statute wording has been changed twice since that time, in order to make it more clear, and the commissioners think it’s been improved.
The commissioners say that in order for the city and village governments of Gainesville, Bakersfield and Theodosia to collect city sales tax on products purchased through the internet, they’d also have to put a measure on the ballot for their respective voters.
Turner says he’s urged them to do that, but it’s unclear if any of the governments have officially decided to also pursue the ballot measure.
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