Tom Ault
Jefferson City
Dear Editor:
Having lived in Florida, Louisiana, Alabama, Ohio, Illinois, and a few other states, I must admit that this is the first state we have lived in where it costs more money for car tax every year than it costs for the water bill.
A couple of years ago, I drove cars for a car dealership, and while driving I frequented the talk show radio stationsthey were better for me to listen to than music which tended to let me relax a little too much! Among the stations listened to, one featured a talk show host, Gary Nolan. He, at that time, was attempting to start the STOP Committee along with some other people. He is a self-professed "card carrying" Libertarian. I can't say that I agree with him about everything, but I do believe he was right about the personal property tax problem.
Should we stop all personal property tax? This is doubtful, but transportation devices such as cars and motorcycles, along with farm machinery, should not have this exorbitant tax.
Pleasure craft such as boats, water skis, airplanes and that type of fun things are not something that a person "has to have" and possibly could remain on the tax rolls, but at a reasonable rate! Transportation in our state, as in all of our country, is a necessity. I realize we are taxed on everything but the air we breathe, (and that has probably been delved into) but when a person has no way to get to work except by automobile that is a completely different situation.
It is time for Missouri to wake up and come to the conclusion that we no longer have a neighborhood grocery or drug store to which we could walk to; there are no doctor visits; our city does not stop a mile or so down the street, and the jobs we work at are not in most of the residential areas.
Let's enter the modern world. According to the newspaper article the loss in tax revenue could be $945 million, but maybe, as I stated in an earlier opinion, we should trim some budgets instead of continuously looking for more ways to spend those tax dollars.