Ag land proposed tax increase opposed

A proposed increase in property taxes on agricultural land has the attention of Missouri Farm Bureau. MFB Vice President Blake Hurst testified before the Missouri State Tax Commission on Tuesday saying the proposed valuation – which is formulated every two years – would nearly double the assessed valuation on Missouri farm ground. (The commission recommends a decrease on the least productive lands.)

Farm Bureau is recommending against any increase. Hurst says things are just too tough right now for farmers, “Corn farmers who’ve seen the price of corn go down every month for the past year except for one. Dairy and pork producers are facing almost unprecedented difficulties with the low prices and high costs. Cotton producers are losing several hundred dollars an acre years and that assumes that they can harvest their crops and a lot of the cotton producers in the Bootheel right now can’t get their crops out.”

Because of the current volatility, Hurst says, now is not the time to increase property taxes on farmland, “I don’t think that the formula – although it’s very professionally done and captures a lot of different attributes of farming – I don’t think it captures that volatility very well. And, so that’s why we recommend that the commission delay an increase in assessed valuation.”

Hurst says the formula tries to capture the average returns on eight classes of farmland and predict interest rates, something he says even the formula’s authors admit is hard to do.

Missouri Ag Department Director Jon Hagler has asked the tax commission to “oppose any increase in land values resulting in higher property taxes to Missouri farmers and strongly support a decrease in the values for pasture and timber land.”

The state tax commission has until December 31st to set the ag productivity values and the legislature has 60 days from January first to reject them if a majority of lawmakers disagree with the numbers.

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Missouri Farm Bureau

Missouri Department of Agriculture

Missouri State Tax Commission