I’ve lived in Missouri for the last 40 of my, almost, 61 years. Here in this fine state we have what’s known as Personal Property Tax. This tax, determined at the county level, is levied on the value of the personal property you own on January 1st of each year. Some of the tax rate is determined by the school district, fire district etc. This is not Real Estate tax.
These days Personal Property is defined as automobiles, motor cycles, trailers (including moble homes), airplanes, farm tractors, farm animals, etc. Years back it used to include household furniture, but that was dropped because it was too hard to determine a true value.
Anyway, the point of this post is to see what other states in the USA have a similar tax. I know that Illinois and Florida do not. And New York didn’t when I left there 40 years ago. It came up because my Mom recently moved from Florida to Missouri and I’m having a hard time explaining to her what it’s all about. Mom’s comment is mainly “I’ve never heard of such a thing!” and “No other state has anything like that!”
Florida used to have an “Intangibles tax” that taxed the possession of everything except property: i.e. your stocks, bonds, savings accounts, etc. It’s only being phased out this year, according to Wikipedia. So I wouldn’t quite say that no other state has anything like it: what’s really the difference between taxing non-real estate property and money?
Virginia has a personal property tax of sorts - it’s based on the value of your car though, rather than any attempt to figure out what other stuff you own. It could be a huge chunk of cash - the year we bought a minivan (1996) our tax bill was over a thousand dollars. Ouch. (the rates have been lowered some since then).
I can’t remember whether this was NC or VA because it’s been gone for quite a while - was phased out a year or so before or after we moved from NC to VA - but at one point we did have to do a return listing all our financial-type assets. Value of stocks, savings accounts, cash-in-hand (howinhell did they expect to enforce that???), as of 12/31. And pay a fairly small tax based on the value of that. It must have been VA, as I lived in NC for nearly 10 years before moving here and don’t recall doing it more than a time or two.
You do pay taxes every year when you register your car in New Hampshire. They go down each year as the car ages. When I moved from NH to VT I paid a one-time tax on the blue book when registering; VT does it in a lump-sum instead of a declining amount every year.
Thanks for the quick replies. In Missouri we report what vehicles, and other stuff too but vehicles for most folks, and that results in many folks not buying, or taking delivery, of new cars until after January 1st. That way the new car is a year old before you have to have it valued.
Back when household furniture was part of it, most folks put the value at $100 or so. I’ve heard that sometimes they’d get a visit from the assessor wanting to see this “old” furniture that was worth so little. Too hard to fairly value, so it was dropped back in the 70’s I think.
One way they enforce the payment is to require you to show your paid receipt when you renew you licence plates.
This is similar to California. Part of the registration fee is label license fee and depend on the age and purchase price of the car. This is labeled on the registration renewal notice as “may be tax deductible”. I was always under the impression that this was because this portion of the registration was considered a property tax.
That was the NC Intangibles Tax - a tax on bank accounts, stocks, bonds, etc. I handled that paperwork for the first couple years of our marriage. Then we moved to DC and then VA.
AFAIR, I either guessed at the cash-in-hand part, or looked in my wallet and estimated the value of the contents - usually a safety pin and a moth.
You are allowed to deduct the tax portion of the California DMV registration cost as a personal property tax. I was quite happy when I learned that one.
In Ohio, you pay something tiny by comparison to register the car each year. I was happier still to learn that one.
Parts of Oregon do. Benton County (Corvallis and surrounds) levies it, as does the Portland Area, I believe. But here, it only applies to businesses, despite the “personal” in the name.
As a home business owner, I’m required to pay it on everything I use for my business, even tangentially (getting a can of pop while working makes the refrigerator taxed, I’m told). Ooodles of fun every March.
Wow, things have changed since I lived in Corvallis. But that was 25 years ago, so I guess that is to be expected. I recall the car registration was two years for $40 for all passenger cars, no matter whether they were old or new.
Is Squirrel’s Tavern still popular in Corvallis? There’s was a place in Philomath we used to hang out at as well, but I forget the name.
In my experience, California, New York, Nevada, & Arizona have a personal property tax on vehicles. The difference between that and MO’s (baffling) PPT system is that the taxes are collected by the state as part of the periodic vehicle license renewal process, not by the county on a calendar year basis 1 years in arrears.
I suspect many more states have such a tax although many residents (& posters) may not recognize it as such. Hint: If you pay more than about $30 to register your car, there’s almost certainly a PPT involved.
What are we talking about here, exactly? I live in NYS, and am moving to Oregon shortly. I, too, have a home business.
Now, in NYS, we have a sales tax (unlike Oregon), and businesses also pay “use tax” on anything they buy that they don’t sales tax on–so when I buy a new computer online and pay no sales tax, I have to pay the equivalent 8% as “use tax” in March, when all Sales and Use Tax is due.
Now, are we talking about something different in Oregon? Or is it just that, unlike all individuals, who have to pay no sales tax on purchases, businesses do have to pay sales/use tax on purchases?
