Whatever you do, don’t forget to sign the form before you mail it.
Greene County Assessor Brent Johnson and his staff have more than 15,000 personal property assessment forms to review by June 1. They also mailed out more than 32,000 second notices to Greene County property owners who did not return their initial assessment forms.
If a property assessment is not returned to the Assessor’s Office by May 1, the property owner incurs a penalty.
“It’s between $15 and $105, but for a lot of people $105 is a lot of money, so I really want our people to understand: get them in,” Johnson said. “And if we have to make adjustments after that, that’s okay. We still received your list.”
One of the most common mistakes, Johnson said, is property owners who use the paper mail-in option forget to sign the form. The signature line is found in the middle of the first page of the form.
“They fill out the form, they mail it in, we have to send it back to them to sign,” Johnson said. “I can’t accept it without their signature, so that’s the rough part. I’m like, ‘Oh, man.’”
There are more than 118,000 taxpayers in Greene County. Johnson estimates about two-thirds of them have returned their assessments at this time. You can check your assessment status with a new online tool available on the Greene County Assessor’s Office website.
Sometimes, personal property tax is the last thing people think about when they move.
“People move, and so we don’t get their new addresses until we get their mail returned on their initial notices, so we update the address and send out a second notice,” Johnson said.
Missouri law requires all Greene County residents and business owners as of Jan. 1, 2023, to declare all taxable personal and business property to the assessor. Taxable property includes motor vehicles, boats, trailers, livestock, farm machinery and business-related equipment. The assessment lists are the basis of 2023 personal and business property tax bills, which residents and business owners will receive in November from Collector of Revenue Allen Icet.
Not receiving a form in the mail is not an excuse to avoid filing. Residents and business owners who did not receive an assessment list should call the Greene County Assessor’s office at (417) 868-4101, or visit the office in the Greene County Historic Courthouse at 940 North Boonville Avenue, Room 37.
Office hours are from 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Monday-Friday.
The assessor’s staff has until June 1 to review all of the forms. Only about 20,000 people use the online filing system.
“I would love more people to use the online filing,” Johnson said.
But for those who don’t file online, the staff of the assessor’s office is there to check their filings by hand.
“We have a lot of folks who don’t file online, so we have a lot of paper forms, so right now of all the forms we have received, we still have to go through about 15,000 paper forms that have changes,” Johnson said. “They are marked ‘received,’ but somebody has to physically review those paper forms.”
Real estate assessments occur in odd-numbered years, so 2023 is a reassessment year. That means for most Greene County property owners, real estate taxes could change compared to what was paid in 2022. Property values can also change for people who made improvements to their properties, like adding a garage or a wooden deck, in such a way that the improvements increase the home’s assessed valuation.
When it comes time to pay taxes in November and December, every property owner’s tax statement contains a breakdown of where their money goes, listing their school district, fire protection district, library tax, tax for Ozarks Technical Community College, plus taxes for senior citizens programs and for the state of Missouri, among others.
