Property Tax Clarity in Jackson County

By Donald Swartz, President

2025 was quite the year for owners of commercial and industrial real estate in Jackson County. Missouri reassesses real estate for property tax purposes every odd year. The county implemented significant increases in commercial value for the 2025, ranging from 15% to 800%+.

How can this be? Missouri law mandates properties be valued at their “fair market value”. For years, Jackson County has been assessing commercial property well below its true value and in 2025, the assessor’s office issued valuation notices with increases to reflect the current market values for commercial properties. (This follows their efforts to increase residential property values in 2023.)

However, in order to review tens of thousands of commercial properties, arbitrarily increasing all values by a set percentage fails to recognize issues with a particular property. Property tax owners are afforded the opportunity to contest/appeal the valuation notice and meet with the assessor’s office and/or have a hearing before the Jackson County Board of Equalization.

The increases in value generated by the assessor’s office set off disgruntled taxpayers and a wave of protests and claims of illegally valuing property occurred. This is just one of the reasons the County Executive was recalled in a fall special election.

The Interim County Executive immediately issued a statement to rollback all commercial values that had increased more than 15%, with the following exceptions:

1. Properties valued over Five Million Dollars
2. Properties that had already filed appeals and settled on new valuations based upon meetings with the assessor’s office or results from the Jackson County Board of Equalization

However, this was not deemed fair and equitable and the Interim County Executive amended the statement to rollback values to 15% above the previous year’s value, even if they had received a successful reduction where the value concluded was greater than 15% increase over the previous year’s value.

Additionally, the Interim County Executive fired the Jackson County Assessor and has hinted the position of the assessor should be an elected position rather than an appointed position. This begs the question, “How can an assessor in Missouri achieve fair market value on properties according to Missouri statute, if taxpayers have the right to vote the individual out of office if they do not like an increase they receive on the property taxes?”

Finally, property taxes in Missouri are due annually on December 31^st. With all the changes and confusion with the updating of values, the Interim County Executive has extended the deadline to pay property taxes until January 31^st without penalty. The county has indicated they will have values updated in the database (and presumably on their website) by February 1^st. This appears to be inconsistent with the deadline of January 31st to have the taxes timely paid.

Clarity?

• What if you pay the higher tax amount than is owed?
• When will refunds be issued to the taxpayer?
• Will refunds be issued to the taxpayer, or will they receive credits to the 2026 taxes, allowing Jackson County to hold excess funds for throughout the calendar year?
• Will the county find a new assessor?
• Will this become an elected position? If so, what will the election cycle look like?
• What about properties valued over Five Million Dollars? Are they being treated fairly and/or equitably?

I believe Jackson County has a long way to go when it comes to clarity.

Swartz + Associates, Inc. (SAI) is a full service property tax firm specializing in the review, analysis and appeals of real and business personal property tax valuations. If you need help with your property taxes, give us a call!