ST CHARLES, Mo. — St. Charles County leaders are doing what they can to reduce personal property taxes for residents.
Due to supply chain issues and a chip shortage, the price of used vehicles has gone up. That means drivers will pay roughly 25% more in personal property taxes.
"In St. Charles County, our residents in 2022 will pay $24 million more in personal property taxes this year than they did last year, on the same vehicles," said Bob Schnur, assistant director of administration for the county.
On Monday, St. Charles County leaders throttled back their small share for the overall tax rate. Schnur said he'd like to see more jurisdictions follow suit.
The move by St. Charles County saves taxpayers $812,087 overall that would have been collected for Road and Bridge and 911 dispatch budgets.
Those entities will still receive roughly the same amount of funding as last year.
"Just because there's inflation doesn't mean you should get more money," St. Charles County Executive Steve Ehlmann said. "There's adjustments that have to be made by law to make sure you don't get a windfall from inflation.
"There's no additional duties for any government to perform on the used cars," Ehlmann said.
Schools, libraries, city budgets, fire districts and other political jurisdictions are set to see an increase of roughly $24 million all from the rise in taxes from used vehicles.
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