ST. LOUIS — When Darren and Lynda Schneller bought a car in Missouri for the first time, they didn’t realize they’d have to pay sales taxes separately in order to register the vehicle.
In Georgia, where they bought a previous vehicle, the sales taxes were handled at the dealership and rolled into car payments.
So it came as a shock when Lynda went to the DMV to get Missouri plates for their new Hyundai and was told she needed to fork up about $4,000.
“I think her jaw hit the ground when she called me up at work,” Darren said. “‘It’s going to cost us this much.’ And I was like, ‘Wait a minute — how?’”
While the Schnellers paid up, there are many other vehicle owners who are unwilling or unable, as evidenced by the number of expired Missouri temporary tags visible in the Ƶ area.
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Almost all of those vehicle owners, when asked by the Post-Dispatch, blame the high sales tax rate and the all-at-once payments that keep them from getting plates. The full amount of taxes , or penalties kick in.
In Missouri, state and local sales taxes add nearly 10% to the purchase price of vehicles. The state rate is 4.225%; local rates vary. In much of the city of Ƶ, for example, the local rate is 5.454% for a combined 9.7%.
In the city, a 2023 entry-level Honda Accord with a list price of $27,295 costs about $2,642 in sales taxes, according to the state’s online sales tax .
That’s more than buyers would pay in many other cities near Missouri. In , for example, the rate is 8.5%. It’s 7.5% in Wichita, . In Little Rock, , it’s 6.7%. And while Memphis, Tennessee, has a slightly higher combined state and local sales tax rate than Ƶ, . That means the sales tax on that new $27,295 Honda in Memphis would be about $600 less than in Ƶ.
“The sales tax is high. I mean, there’s no ifs, ands and buts about it,” said Rep. Raychel Proudie, a Democrat who represents Ferguson, where police recently started a special enforcement program targeting expired temporary tags.
But some help may be coming for Missouri drivers who can’t handle the big extra payment. It won’t reduce the tax, but it’ll allow buyers to include the amount in car payments.
State legislators recently passed a bill that allows dealers to handle sales taxes starting in 2026 or 2027, said Doug Smith, executive director of the . It’ll make dealerships a “one-stop shop,” he said.
On the streets
In the Ƶ region, it’s hard to drive a block without spotting an expired temporary tag.
A Post-Dispatch reporter spotted one every other tightly packed row in the Brentwood Promenade’s parking lot on a recent Saturday. Yolanda Perkins, of Ƶ, had one that expired in early June on an SUV she recently bought at a Bommarito Nissan dealership.
Perkins, of Ƶ, said she knew about Missouri’s sales tax process when she purchased her car. But it’d be like a second down payment to get her plates, she said.
“You know, I don’t have it right now,” Perkins said. “I just don’t.”
At the Schnucks South City, Rodney Owens, of Ƶ, was driving his SUV with temporary tags that expired on Dec. 24. The sales taxes would cost him $2,500, which is too much for now, he said.
“But as soon as I get back on my feet, it’d be OK,” Owens said.
William Waller, managing attorney of criminal and municipal defense at ArchCity Defenders, a public interest law firm, said a lot of his clients may not have a credit situation that would allow them to get dealers to finance their sales taxes. And enforcement of proper vehicle registration affects everyone, Waller said.
“But because of the financial requirements in Missouri, it is almost ubiquitous among people who don’t have a lot of disposable income,” he said.
Perkins’ goal is to pay off her sales taxes, she said, “because who wants to get pulled over all the time and get tickets?”
Owens, though, wasn’t as concerned. At the busy Tower Grove East grocery store, even a security guard at the lot, who declined to speak with the Post-Dispatch, had expired tags.
“Just like running a stop sign or running a red light,” Owens said, “I think the police just don’t care.”
‘Liar’s poker’
Tom Fascetti, the general manager of Don Brown Chevrolet, is in a competition with his colleagues at the south city dealership. Every day, employees there take pictures of the temporary tags they see on their way in to work. Whoever snaps a shot of the oldest one might win a soda, he said.
“We all come in and we just go, ‘OK, who’s got it?”’ he said. “It’s like playing liar’s poker.”
Fascetti said temp tags in Missouri are an embarrassment.
“Everybody’s concerned about paying their sales tax,” Fascetti said. “But in essence, it’s part of being an adult.”
Smith, the dealers association executive, said the temporary-tag situation in Ƶ is an epidemic. It comes at a time when vehicle prices have never been higher, he said.
Sales tax rates in Missouri can change on different sides of a single street, Smith said. Every time a municipality needs to increase revenue, he said, they increase sales tax rates.
“It doesn’t seem like there’s a stopping point,” Smith said.
Proudie said constituents have complained to her for years about drivers with expired temp tags. There, the police department recently launched “Temp Tag Tuesday,” a special enforcement program.
Troy Doyle, the city’s new police chief, posted data that showed most people stopped were let off with a warning, Proudie said. But when she asked for more details about the program, Proudie said the chief told her it wasn’t in his purview to answer the state representative.
“I appreciate them saying, ‘OK, we are going to try to, we are going to pull them over and give them education and resources,’” Proudie said. “But what is that? And what does that look like?”
Proudie said she is concerned about the impact the new program could have on meeting requirements set by a federal consent decree that aims to reshape public safety there following the Michael Brown killing in 2014.
Doyle didn’t respond to a phone call and email for this story but last month told the Post-Dispatch the new program is not predatory in nature.
Elsewhere, police have gone further. that Calverton Park was towing cars off of driveways with expired tags.
“That sort of practice is what I would do if I wanted to depopulate and dissolve a city,” said Waller, whose firm is looking into the enforcement in Calverton Park.
Proudie said she’s concerned some of the new programs may be overly punitive and a measure to fill municipal coffers.
“I just want to make sure, and be in the know, especially if police departments are asking for support, that when they do initiatives,” she said, “that they are concise, they are clear and it’s something that the public understands in full, not just that we’re doing ‘something’ because people are complaining about it.”
The deal
A is set to allow dealers to collect sales taxes on vehicles. But it’ll take until 2026 or 2027, as the change requires new technology at the dealerships, Smith said.
For drivers, Smith said the new legislation will make the car buying process easier. Titling and registering the vehicle at point of sale adds a layer of convenience to the process, he said.
Fascetti said the change — which will roll the taxes into car loans, he said — will definitely help customers and may help dealers sell cars.
And, the new process will definitely help the state, Fascetti said, “because they’re missing out on millions and millions of dollars of sales tax money on car purchases.”
But while the change may put a dent in the number of expired temporary tags, it’ll do nothing to get drivers to keep their registration up to date by paying their vehicle personal property taxes, Proudie said. Again, it’s a high tax rate that’s seen as the culprit. The state has the third-highest vehicle property tax rate in the country, according to a WalletHub . Three of Missouri’s eight neighbors, Illinois, Oklahoma and Tennessee, do not levy property taxes on vehicles.
This spring, Sen. Bill Eigel, R-Weldon Spring, unsuccessfully pushed to lower personal property taxes on vehicles. Eigel, who is expected to run for governor in 2024, called the tax an unfair burden on the people of Missouri, where “it’s OK for the government to charge you rent on your car.”
But Missouri Senate Majority Leader Cindy O’Laughlin, R-Shelbina, said the tax revenue is essential for rural counties like the one she represents.
“In Shelby County, the personal property tax pays for our roads and our schools and our nursing home,” she said.
Perkins, the car owner from Ƶ with expired tags, said the changes to the state’s sales tax system would help a lot of people. As for the cost of the taxes, she said Missouri should have the same rates as other states.
“Why, according to where demographics and where you live, why should it be more or less?” Perkins said. “It should just be one set (rate).”
The Schnellers, who own the Hyundai, are eventually looking to buy a new car. But given a potential move to Mississippi, they may hold off on getting one in Missouri, Darren said.
“Then, I know I can do sales tax like I did in the South,” Darren said, “and it makes it so much easier.”