SAINT LOUIS COUNTY MISSOURI
ASSESSOR’S OFFICE
41 South Central Avenue
St. Louis, Missouri 63105-1777
314-615-1500
Do you own a small business in Missouri? Are you filing a Schedule C with your 1040 tax return? Or do you have a partnership or corporation? If yes, then you’re supposed to pay personal property taxes on your equipment.
I keep getting asked: Do I have to pay personal property taxes? Do I have to fill out that form? If you own a small business, the answer is yes.
I used to think that if you didn’t have any assets, you didn’t have to do a business personal property declaration. But—even if you have absolutely no business assets at all, you’re going to have a minimum assessed value of business property for tax purposes of $200. That’s not what the tax is, that’s an assessed value of your property.
So how does that assessment thing work? I’ll use my own business as an example. In 2013, I bought new computer equipment. The total cost was around $3,000. Computers count as “5-year” property, because that’s how long it takes to depreciate a computer on your tax return. (Office furniture is an example of a 7-year property.) Now I’m writing off the whole cost of the computer on my tax return (as a Section 179 expense)—but it’s still considered a 5 year property for depreciation purposes and for the personal property tax declaration.
In the personal property tax declaration form, I would put $3000 for year 2013 in schedule 9 for 5-year property. (If your brain just exploded reading that, relax, I’m going to give you the easy cheater way to do the form in a little bit.)
Then that amount (in my case $3,000) is multiplied by .85 and then multiplied by .3333 so my assessed value is $849.92. That’s not the tax I’m going to pay, that’s just the assessment of the value of what my business owns. (3000 x .85 x .3333 = 849.915)
Last year, the tax rate was 8.052. I only had $230 of assessed value so my bill was only $18.52 this past December. Because of my new equipment, my bill will be higher this year. But your bill is going to be close to 8% of what the assessed value of your equipment it. As your equipment ages, the assessment will go down but the assessment will never go below $200.
So what’s the cheater trick for filling out the form? Grab your tax return and pull out the Federal depreciation schedule. It’s going to have a list of your company assets, what they cost, and whether they are a 5-year, 7-year, or a 10-year property, and what year you bought them. If you have company assets like computers, equipment, or vehicles, then you should have a depreciation schedule to go with your tax return. I know that some companies won’t give that list to their clients to force them to come back every year. If you’re not getting that list—you have a right to ask for it. (And move to a preparer that gives you all the information you need for your taxes.)
If you didn’t get your personal property tax declaration statement in the mail, here’s a link so you can have the form:
http://www.stlouisco.com/Portals/8/docs/document%20library/Assessor/pp/BusAndMfgDecForm_WebCopy.pdf
You need to have it signed and filed by March 31st.
St. Louis County has started a new Online Personal Property Declaration that will be available from February 1 – April 30th. http://revenue.stlouisco.com/Collection/ppInfo/ppDec.aspx It’s a good option for people who missed the March 31 deadline and for people who are just more comfortable with on-line services. If you start using the online service, you’ll be able to access your previously filed returns, making it a whole lot easier to fill out that form in the future!
If you’ve been forgetting to file your St Louis County personal property taxes, 2014 is a good year to come clean and start filing.
Thank you, thank you, thank you – you are a great help!!
Hi Katie,
I understand your confusion. This is my recommendation–If it’s on your depreciation schedule–it goes on the personal property list. If you have nothing on your depreciation schedule then you should claim $200 of personal property. (That’s what they do in St Louis County is give you a minimum of $200.)
If you have equipment that you had before starting your business–like a computer, I would be sure to age it. (In St. Louis county, the personal property tax is charged by the age of the equipment.) But also, if it’s not being used 100% for the business–I might leave it off. For example–that computer–is it really 100% business use if you had it before you even started the business?
Now the next part–how much does a piece of equipment need to cost before it goes on the list? The IRS has new rules about expensing items versus depreciating them. You can elect to expense any piece of equipment under $500. I don’t think the county is on board with that yet though. Technically $100 was the old number, but frankly, that number was around ages ago. I personally use $200 as my guideline for the personal property tax statement. So even if I’m expensing things for my IRS return, I’m taking them as a section 179 expense so they stay on my depreciation schedule–it makes preparing my personal property tax declaration easier.
I hope that helps.
Maybe you can help me because no one, even my accountant, seems to be able to answer my question. I’m still working on my business personal property tax statement (long story) and I am confused about a few things, this is my first time.
First of all, what is the minimum value I should claim? For instance, if I have a piece of equipment that cost me $40, do I have to write that down? $100? $5? etc? I asked my accountant that and he never would give me an answer.
Secondly, I am using equipment that I owned before I started my business, do I still have to write that down?
Third, after reading your post here, it appears that if it’s not listed as an asset on my federal tax return, it does not have to be listed on personal property, is this so?
Thanks for anything you can tell me, I’d rather not talk to my county (which is very near yours) just yet as they have a habit of giving me wrong info and once flat out lied to me about something.