Wright City leaders won’t ask voters to consider expanding the city’s sales tax to online purchases — not in the immediate future, at least.
In September, the board of aldermen …
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Wright City leaders won’t ask voters to consider expanding the city’s sales tax to online purchases — not in the immediate future, at least.
In September, the board of aldermen had a discussion about how an online sales tax (technically referred to as a “use tax” in Missouri) would work if it were implemented in Wright City. The Missouri state legislature passed a law allowing such taxes earlier this year, but state law also requires the tax to be approved by local voters.
City leaders said they wanted to get public feedback before seriously considering whether to put a tax on election ballots this April. This month, The Record asked aldermen whether they’d reached a determination.
“We decided not to do it,” said Board President Ramiz Hakim. “Citizen input was part of it. … Most importantly, if this is something we want to pursue, I personally feel the citizens deserve to know exactly how this money would be used, and we didn’t have anything to articulate for that.”
Mayor Michelle Heiliger said city leaders also didn’t want to interfere with voters’ considerations for financing construction of a new high school. The Wright City R-II School District will have to get voters to approve a no-tax-increase bond issue in the near future to proceed with that project.
“We have a partner in this community that’s going for a no-tax-increase bond, and we don’t want to impede that,” Heiliger said. She added that the city government hasn’t ruled out the possibility of an online sales tax sometime in the future.
