While the state already has a use tax, Steven Pilkington from the Department of Revenue suggested in an email that a local use tax should be set up in Crawford County.

During the Dec. 9 Crawford County Commission meeting, commissioners discussed the possibility of adopting a local use tax.

“...A use tax is a local tax on goods purchased from out of state, most often online delivery to use in the city or county,” Pilkington said.

For local goods and services, Crawford County collects a 2.75 percent tax, but that does not apply to vendors that are located outside of Missouri. If a local use tax is approved, that 2.75 percent tax will also be collected on goods and services purchased from out-of-state vendors.

Pilkington added that citizens cannot be double-taxed. 

“The use tax rate would be the exact same as the resident’s local sales tax rate,” Pilkington said. “Residents would never have to pay both use and sales tax on the same purchase.”

Associate Commissioner of District Two Jared Boast made a clarification on how the county sales tax is divided up.

“Of the 2.75 percent rate that he is...talking about, only two percent of that 2.75 percent actually comes to this Crawford County entity. Three-quarters of one percent of that actually goes directly to 911, and…because of the charter, the way 911 was created statewide, that tax is labeled under us. We do not touch it. We do not clear it. We do not disperse it,” Boast said.

Local resident Cindy Redburn agrees with the addition of a use tax.

“...I do believe that sales taxes and use taxes are voluntary. You’re not being forced to pay something. I totally support the use tax,” said Redburn. “How are we supposed to generate the revenue we need to do the roads. I mean, inflation is hitting everybody everywhere. How can we expect that we’re going to be able to meet these obligations when the cost of everything continues to rise, and yet we don’t have any rise in revenue?”

Boast said he is familiar with the numbers.

“I had a presentation on what the use tax would have brought in last year, that summer, I’m going to clean all that up, refresh it, if you will,” Boast said.

Associate Commissioner Mark Pfeiffer of District One said that smaller counties are not the only ones being hurt by online shopping.

“Entire malls are closing in St. Louis,” said Pfeiffer. “Got a couple of little shops in there, but that’s it. Most of them have the cages down on them.”

With new technology and companies like Amazon, people are not spending locally as they have in the past. They are spending online. 

Presiding Commissioner Steve Black spoke to the inability to only shop locally.

“But again, I’ve said it several times, that thing that you used to buy in Steelville, or Cuba or Bourbon, you can’t buy [anymore]. That’s why you’re buying it from Amazon,” Black said. “You used to pay that sales tax in Crawford County, and now you don’t because that store is gone.” 

Boast introduced a headline that he saw on St. Louis news about the $80 million shortfall that St. Louis County has, and how it has impacted the ideas of smaller counties.

“...Some of these smaller counties have already saw this as an opportunity, and they’ve went forward and this passed, and every one of them [that] has done it has said this was the right thing to do,” said Boast.

No action was taken.  The topic will be discussed again in the future.

In other business, commissioners addressed upcoming courthouse office closures due to holidays.

Crawford County Circuit Clerk Karen Harlan said the court is going to be closed Dec. 26, and she wondered if the courthouse was going to be closed as well.

Black said it wouldn’t be reasonable to have the courthouse closed for so many days in a row, but it might be necessary.

“That would mean the courthouse would be closed three straight days. Don’t know if that is a wise practice, but we need to talk about it, since Christmas is on a Thursday,” Black said. “In all honesty, you know there’s not going to be much production on a Friday after Christmas.”

Some courthouse departments said that if they were to remain open on Dec. 26, then Jan. 2, they may close. After some discussion, commissioners decided to let the office holders choose whether to close their offices on either day, or to remain open on both days.