Missouri Has One of the Highest Vehicle Property Tax Rates

That new car you want to buy, it's going to cost you at the end of the year when your county assessor sends you the bill for property tax on your Missouri vehicle. It will cost you more in taxes than people who live in forty six other states not named Missouri. This according to a new study from WalletHub on vehicle property tax rates.

If you purchase a Toyota Camry LE four-door Sedan, the most popular car of 2019, you'll be paying $623.00 in Missouri vehicle property taxes on the car. This is the vehicle WalletHub used to determine the Vehicle Property Tax rankings of the states.

Of course, not everyone has the most popular car or newest model year. I just stopped in to the Johnson County Assessor's Office yesterday because I needed the vehicle property tax waiver to get my cars registered in Missouri and didn't live here on January 1, 2019.

When I asked the woman helping me what my tax bill would be at the end of 2020 for my 2009 Focus and 2014 Soul, she told be about $210.00. Add to that, the $41 dollars to plate and title each car in Missouri, and I've spent $300 keeping my car legal.

That's not much more than I spent last year in Iowa. I spent about $250 there keeping my cars legal, although this year would have cost be less because the cost of registering my Soul dropped because of it's age. For me, Iowa was sticker shock compared to Texas where it cost me about $110 a year to register two cars.

Some states like Illinois don't have a vehicle property tax, but registering and plating your car still isn't cheap. When I lived there 14 years ago, I think it cost $96 to register a car (maybe less.) These days, the cost is $151 dollars, so if I was living in Illinois my two cars would cost just as much as I spent this year in Missouri.

The bottom line is Missouri has a high vehicle tax. You'll only pay more in Connecticut, Rhode Island and Mississippi. And the newer your vehicle the more you'll pay. That said, depending on how long you keep your ride in Missouri, you may end up paying less than Illinois, a state with no vehicle property tax but a high vehicle registration cost. In some cases no vehicle property tax isn't such a good deal. Especially if it costs $151 dollars a year to keep a jalopy on the road.