By BRENT MARTIN
St. Joseph Post
Missouri residents 62 and older could see their property taxes frozen under a bill passing the Missouri Senate and moving to the House.
State Sen. Tony Luetkemeyer sponsors the bill which is a clean-up of legislation approved last year. Luetkemeyer, a Republican from Parkville, says the legislation responds to recent hikes in property taxes.
“The purpose behind that is we’ve seen, particularly in a lot of the metropolitan areas in and around Kansas City and St. Louis, huge increases in the assessed valuations for real estate property,” Luetkemeyer tells KFEQ/St. Joseph Post. “It’s caused many seniors who are on fixed incomes to be put in the spot of potentially being taxed out of their home.”
Luetkemeyer succeeded in getting his measure through the legislature last year and signed into law. But that legislation restricted the tax break to those receiving Social Security. The follow up legislation expands the measure to any Missouri property owner 62 and older.
“There are a lot of seniors that are not eligible for Social Security, because they receive public pensions,” Luetkemeyer explains. “So, for example, school teachers, firefighters, police officers. And so, one of the things that I did this year is I filed a clean-up bill that would expand the eligibility to all seniors who are age 62 and older rather than seniors who just qualify for Social Security.”
The measure has passed the Senate and been sent to the House.
Luetkemeyer has asked House leadership to pick up the measure and send it on to the governor rather than risk amending it and returning it to the Senate.
“The Senate has been a little touch and go, to say the least, this session,” says Luetkemeyer. “This is probably the slowest start to a legislative session we’ve had in the six years that I’ve been in the Senate and there’s a host of different reasons for that. My fear is if the House were to amend the bill and send it back to the Senate during the last couple of weeks of session, it might be difficult for me to get it passed and to the governor’s desk.”
A property tax freeze for senior citizens is up to each county to enact. It can be done with a vote of the county commission or placed on the ballot through initiative petition.
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