Good News on Your Property Tax Bill: What You Need to Know

If you own a home in Platte County, you may have already gotten real relief on your property tax bill this year. Here’s what the new homestead credit actually does, how the county enacted it, exactly how to check whether you’re covered, where the program still misses the mark, and what I’ll push for next.

The good news

Platte County voters approved a new homestead property tax credit on April 7, 2026. The County Commission then formally enacted it on July 20, 2026, through Commission Order 2026-CO-110. Since then, the county has automatically enrolled more than 20,300 homeowners.

Here’s what it does in plain terms. If your property qualifies, your annual property tax increase is capped at 5 percent or the rate of inflation, instead of rising however much your assessment happens to jump in a given year. This is the first real tool Platte County homeowners have had to put a ceiling on how fast their tax bill can grow year to year, and it exists because voters demanded it.

Who was automatically enrolled

The county enrolled you automatically if all of the following were true: your property is classified as residential by the Assessor’s Office, and the mailing address on file matches the property address. Homes held in a trust qualify the same way, as long as the addresses match.

A few categories were left out of automatic enrollment: properties owned by incorporated businesses, and properties registered as short-term rentals. If that describes your situation, you’ll need to look into the appeal process below rather than assuming you’re covered.

How to check whether you’re covered

Don’t guess — go check. The county built a tool for exactly this. Visit the county’s homestead page directly at: https://www.co.platte.mo.us/homestead

On that page you’ll find an interactive map. Enrolled properties are marked with a blue circle showing the credit type. Search your address and confirm your property shows up as enrolled.

If your property doesn’t appear and you believe you qualify, the same page has an Open Appeal Form you can submit to request a review. Get that filed by September 11 — that’s the deadline the county has set for appeals.

If you were enrolled automatically but, for whatever reason, don’t want to participate, you can opt out. Email the county your parcel ID, name, and property address to request removal, using the contact information on that same homestead page.

One more thing worth knowing: this is a different program from the statewide senior property tax freeze credit you may have heard about (that one only applies to seniors and works differently). This homestead credit is Platte County’s own program under the state’s 2025 property tax law, and it applies more broadly to primary residences, not just seniors. If you’re not sure which program applies to you, the county’s homestead page is still the right place to start.

Where it falls short

I supported this credit, and I’ll keep supporting it. There are areas of improvement we should consider going forward.

First, the cap itself is weaker than most people assume. It limits your increase to 5 percent or the rate of inflation, whichever is greater — not whichever is lower. In a high-inflation year, that means your bill can still climb right along with inflation instead of being held down. A cap that uses “whichever is greater” is really a floor as much as it is a ceiling.

Second, this credit is a patch on top of a complicated system, not a fix to the system itself. It’s a calculation applied after your assessment is already set, jurisdiction by jurisdiction. We’ve already seen what happens when these credits get complicated — homeowners in other counties who were told their tax bills would be “frozen” under the separate senior freeze program still saw real increases, because school levies and debt levies were carved out of the freeze. People did everything right and still got a bill they weren’t expecting.

There’s also a legal cloud over the program right now. A group of counties and taxing districts has sued in state court arguing the underlying law is unconstitutional, and a judge could rule on that any time.

Look at who’s actually suing to strike this down: taxing entities that lose the ability to grow your bill without limit if the cap holds. That’s the pattern. There will always be governments and insiders who want more of your money for their own projects, and they will fight tooth and nail in court, in Jefferson City, anywhere they have to, to keep the door open to dip into your property taxes whenever they decide they need to. A real cap closes that door for good. That’s exactly why it’s being challenged.

This is the same insider political class I talk about everywhere I go in this campaign. They don’t want caps, because caps mean they can’t carve out your tax dollars for their own special projects whenever it’s convenient. Holding the line against that class, and protecting families and small businesses from it, is a big part of why I’m running for Presiding Commissioner in the first place. That uncertainty in the courts is exactly what happens when relief gets built as a credit bolted onto the existing system instead of a fix to the system itself.

What I’ll push for

The real fix is simpler than a credit calculation: cap how much your assessment itself is allowed to grow each year, at 5 percent or the rate of inflation, whichever is lower. When the cap is on the assessment, every taxing jurisdiction’s math flows from the same number automatically. No separate credit calculation, no carve-outs for certain levies, no confusion about what’s covered.

This is also how you prevent a Jackson County situation from happening here. In 2023, Jackson County homeowners got hit with assessment increases of 20, 50, even over 100 percent in a single year, and the county is still tangled in lawsuits and rollback orders because of it. Capping assessment growth every year, using the lower number, stops that kind of shock before it starts instead of asking homeowners to fight it after the fact.

Net-Net:  It is a good start, and it can get better.  As Presiding Commissioner, I am committed to working with our state legislators to improve this going forward. Homeowners shouldn’t need a tax credit application to know their bill is under control. They should be able to count on it.

Check your status now at https://www.co.platte.mo.us/homestead.