By Jeff Lehr

jlehr@joplinglobe.com

PINEVILLE, Mo. — Voters on April 8 in McDonald County will be deciding a use-tax proposal in Goodman, filling three seats on the McDonald County R-1 School Board, and selecting a mayor in Anderson and a town marshal in Pineville.

This is the second time Goodman residents have been asked to approve a city use tax of 1 percent. Voters in the town rejected it once previously, and McDonald County voters turned down a countywide use tax in February.

The tax would apply to purchases of goods from out-of-state vendors totaling more than $2,000 in a calendar year. The life and rate of the tax would be tied to the repeal, reduction or raising of the town’s 1 percent sales tax.

Mayor Calvin Wilson said the tax is meant to capture local sales-tax revenues that are lost when goods and materials are purchased from out-of-state vendors. He said it is a way of encouraging consumers, merchants and contractors to buy locally.

The mayor said most residents will never have to pay the tax. He said it applies more to retailers and contractors that buy products or materials in other states for resale here than to average consumers.

The Goodman town council put the measure on the ballot in an effort to bolster general-fund revenues in light of rising gasoline and insurance costs.

“We don’t expect to get a big windfall,” Wilson said.

The mayor said it is unknown how much money the tax might raise. The city’s sales tax brings in about $67,000 annually. The use tax might bring in enough additional revenues to improve the town’s budget picture, he said.

Goodman has had difficulty covering the costs of its basic services and did not have the funds to give city employees raises this year or contribute to their retirement funds, according to City Clerk Paula Chase. Employees’ medical insurance was cut back as well, and they now must pay for their own life insurance, she said.

Residents would like to see the town expand its police force of three full-time officers, but there is no money for it, Chase said. The use tax could possibly help the town hire another officer.

“That’s one of the main complaints we get — that we don’t have a 24/7 department,” she said.

David Griffith, public information officer for the Missouri Department of Revenue, said local use taxes apply only to inventory or products shipped into the state of Missouri.

An example might be someone who purchases computer equipment from a dealer in another state that has no business outlet in Missouri, Griffith said. He said the tax would not apply to a vehicle that a Missouri resident buys from a dealer in another state because the buyer would pay sales taxes on the vehicle when he registers it in Missouri.