In quest of informed voters

I want to update you on the progress of two House bills designed to better inform the public on the collection and spending of local tax dollars.

The first is HB 762, which would establish the “Missouri Municipal Government Expenditure Database.” This database would allow the public free access to see how their city governments spend their tax dollars, including the vendors’ names to whom payments were made. Publicizing this information, according to the bill sponsor, will bring about a greater transparency of how taxpayer money is spent, and thus potentially reduce fraud and corruption.

The State of Missouri already has a similar portal for the public to check how state tax dollars are spent at mapyourtaxes.mo.gov. If passed, this bill would go into effect in 2022, giving cities over two years to get their information online.

The second bill is HB 374, which would inform voters on the ballot with more information about details of a potential sales tax increase.

Our state allows not only for county sales taxes and city sales taxes, but also a myriad of other mini-taxing districts to be established for transportation and infrastructure. These sales taxes can be layered, resulting in shoppers not knowing what sales they may be paying from store to store.

When new taxes are proposed in local ballot measures, voters are often unsure of whether the new tax is relatively high, low, or average in comparison to neighboring areas. HB 374 would require language showing the highest tax rate, lowest tax rate, and average tax rate in the city be published on the ballot so voters are informed and have perspective when they vote on potential tax hikes.

HB 374 is a follow up to last year’s HB 1858, which requires the Missouri Department of Revenue to publish a map showing the sales tax rates of all locations throughout the state. This map would allow our shoppers to compare the tax rates in, say, St. Joseph at East Hills Mall versus The North Shoppes versus buying in our local hometowns.

This map should be available on the Department of Revenue’s website, dor.mo.gov, later this year.