Business life: My finance news blog

Thirty-eight states assess a tax when you sell a home.

Missouri’s real estate agents want to make sure their state never makes it 39.

The "Vote YES to Stop Double Taxation Committee" — funded by state and national real estate trade groups — said it submitted "tens of thousands" of signatures Sunday to put a constitutional amendment on the November ballot that would prohibit transfer or sales taxes on real estate in Missouri.

Spokesman Scott Charton would not say exactly how many signatures the group submitted, but said it was "very comfortable" that it had more than the roughly 160,000 needed to qualify to put an amendment on the ballot.

The measure is preventative. Neither the state nor any cities or counties in Missouri now have a transfer tax. But real estate groups worry that, in a budget crunch, state or local lawmakers may start taxing home sales in a bid to raise revenue.

"As state, county and city revenues decline, politicians are tempted to impose new transfer taxes — just as Missouri citizens are struggling to make it," the group said in a news release. Elizabeth Mendenhall, president of the Missouri Association of Realtors, described transfer taxes as "unfair double taxation," because Missourians also pay property taxes every year.

Still, such taxes are hardly unusual.

They’re in place in 38 states and the District of Columbia, generally at less than 1 percent of the purchase price. Illinois taxes sales at 0.1 percent, though some municipalities, like the city of Chicago, assess taxes of their own. In some cities, the funds are used to pay for open space or affordable housing programs.

But they don’t exist in Missouri. And real estate agents, already battered by the weak housing market, hope to keep it that way.

Source