Thursday, March 24, 2011

Republican Who Wants To Be In Charge Of Property Taxes Doesn't Pay His Property Taxes

Since back taxes are in the news, maybe we should consider something with a little more serious practical implications than Claire McCaskill noticing that her accountant hadn't been listing some personal property taxes and then voluntarily paying them. There's an election coming up on April 5 for St. Louis County Assessor. This election will determine the person in charge of assigning property tax values to county real estate.

The entire function of the job is to deal with property taxes, so you would think it'd be a given that both of the candidates would have made sure that their own property taxes were in order. You'd be wrong. KMOX reported:
The St. Louis City Collector of Revenue confirms that L.K. “Chip” Wood owes $12,458.56 for two years of unpaid property tax, penalties and interest — on the L.K. Wood real estate office at 5600 Hampton Avenue. “I guess the company didn’t have the money to make the payments,” Wood said Tuesday. “I apologize. It’s an oversight. I didn’t know where we stood with that until you just called me.
And that wasn't his only problem:
Last week, Wood blamed a mailing address mix-up after a move for being late paying $2,400 in St. Louis County personal property tax. The county counselor has sent Wood a letter of apology noting that while Wood was late, he did pay his county tax bill before the county sued him for nonpayment.
So, if your job is to be in charge of property taxes, but you don't even pay your own, isn't that a pretty major problem?

Fortunately, Democrats have a great candidate in Jake Zimmerman:
So, if you live in St. Louis County, and you're voting for the guy who's in charge of property taxes, I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that you should go with the guy who actually pays his own. Or, as the Post-Dispatch puts it:
If there must be an elected assessor, it should be someone professional enough to understand the complications of the job and compassionate enough to care about people with problems. Also, his taxes should be current. We recommend Jake Zimmerman.

1 comment:

  1. Heck, here in Festus you can't run for mayor if your city utilities (water, sewer, trash) are in arrears. Just ask Shawn Jeffers.

    He attempted to file for the race after his water bill was due and unpaid on Jan. 15th. The last day to file for mayor was Jan. 18th.
    Disqualified from the ballot, Jeffers made sure his city taxes and municipal user fees were current then he refiled and was accepted as a write-in candidate.

    This certainly doesn't bode well for his chances of election but I have to give it up to him for his tenacity. I might just throw him a write-in vote for the heck of it.

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