LAKE OF THE OZARKS, Mo. — Bob Raines doesn't mind going against the grain as long as it makes sense. In Morgan County, lakefront home and condo owners benefit from this assessor's approach.

While most assessors and the Missouri State Tax Commission determine floating boat docks to be personal property, Raines assesses the structures as real property.

So as homeowners in Camden County cough up personal property tax based on 33.3 of their dock's assessed valuation, dock owners in Morgan County pay only 19 percent.

Boat docks in Morgan County have been taxed as real property for over 20 years and Raines says it has served well both taxpayers and the county. Raines contends that attaching docks to the real estate guarantees the tax actually gets paid on the county's 5,000 docks.

Even though schools, ambulance and fire districts are taxing 19 percent of dock valuation instead of 33.3 percent, Raines says the taxing entities are better off because of the high rate of tax collection.

Raines believes fewer dock owners would pay the tax if the structures were assessed as personal property.

"It would have no teeth," he said.

Autos and boats are licensed by the state and personal property tax receipts must be shown to re-register vehicles and vessels. However, docks at Lake of the Ozarks are permitted by AmerenUE and carry no state license.

A large number of dock owners live in the county only part time and pay personal property tax on automobiles and boats in another Missouri county. If Morgan County switched dock taxation from real estate to personal property and ate the additional cost of distributing additional property tax forms to all lakefront part-time homeowners, it's unclear how many forms would be voluntarily returned, according to Raines. Of the forms returned including only a dock, it's unclear how many part-time homeowners would actually pay the tax, since there is little to no repercussion for failing to pay.

While county collectors can send bills encouraging payment with interest and/or late payment penalty, if a dock is the only item on the personal property tax bill, as Raines said, it has no teeth. County collectors rarely use collection agencies and usually do not report unpaid bills beyond the county level. So, there's not much incentive to pay the dock tax and little to no impact on an individual's credit score.

For these reasons and because docks are customarily bought and sold in lakefront real estate transactions, Raines says Morgan County's method makes common sense and he will continue to assess docks as real property.

Camden County Assessor Eddie Whitworth assesses boat docks as personal property at 33.3 percent of valuation. For Whitworth it is just a matter of following state statute.

"The law is pretty clear on boat docks," he said.

Randy Turley, Chief Legal Counsel with the Missouri State Tax Commission, agrees. He says it is the commission's legal opinion that floating boat docks are personal property based on Missouri Statute 137.090.

If a dock owner is a full-time Camden County resident, the property tax bill includes the dock with vehicles and vessels, therefore forcing full payment of tax on all items so the taxpayer can obtain a receipt to reregister their cars and boats.

If a dock owner is a part-time resident, but has a permanent address out-of-state, Missouri statute still requires any boat within state lines be registered in Missouri within 60 days. So, if the part-time homeowner wants to keep a boat legally registered in their dock at Lake of the Ozarks and has no address in another county in Missouri, they would be paying personal property tax on the boat and dock in Camden County.

While Whitworth agrees that residents with only a dock on their personal property tax bill can get away without paying, he believes personal property tax is collected for the vast majority of the 17,963 docks on the water within Camden County.

Whitworth and chief legal counsel for the Missouri State Tax Commission both follow the letter of the law concerning floating boat docks, but concur that Morgan County's approach makes common sense.

Some Morgan County residents have on occasion opposed paying the tax by challenging the legality of docks being assessed as real estate. “I usually tell them I’d gladly add the dock to their personal property tax bill and they can pay 33 percent instead of 19. I haven’t had very many takers,” Raines said.

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