In September, for the first time since the city’s founding in 1995, Green Park set a non-zero tax rate on commercial real estate, following voter approval to do so in April. The commercial property tax rate of 0.5200 per $100 of assessed value — which was supposed to pay for road repairs — was heavily denounced by Green Park business owners in the months leading up to its passage.
Now, Green Park business owners are facing another predicament: the tax was not listed on their 2025 tax bill. When business owners paid their taxes, the grand total did not include the Green Park commercial property tax.
The St. Louis County’s Collector of Revenue sent a letter to Green Park business owners to inform them of the error. The letter was dated Dec. 31 — the same day that taxes were due — though according to Jim Smoot of Kingpin Properties, some business owners didn’t receive the letter until 10 days after that date. Either way, owners had already paid what they thought was the correct tax bill by the Dec. 31 deadline.
The letter read, “The City of Green Park submitted its commercial property tax rate of 0.5200 per $100 of assessed value. However, due to a processing error by the software vendor the County uses to produce tax bills, the City of Green Park tax rate was not included in the original bill calculations.” The county did not respond to The Call’s requests for comment.
According to business owner Chris Wilson, the additional tax had to be paid within 30 days or owners would face “major fines.”
Because the letter was sent on the last day of 2025, business owners ended up paying the property tax in 2026. Since business deductions are taken in the year taxes are paid, Green Park business owners won’t receive these deductions until the end of 2026.
For landlords who rent out commercial property, this error has posed another issue. Landlords who calculated rent prices at the end of the year — having factored in the cost of property taxes — have had to go back to their tenants to tell them that rent will be higher than expected.
“That’s just poor business,” Smoot said. “It’s additional work, and that’s just not how you run a business.”
On behalf of the city of Green Park, city clerk Theresa Pfyl said, “The city provided all necessary information to the County Collector’s office in October. It is unfortunate that a software error at the county level resulted in delays and confusion. The city values its commercial property owners and appreciates their patience with the Collector’s Office while this matter is resolved.”
This error, Smoot says, creates another “huge burden” for business owners who opposed the new tax rate in the first place; at least, once they found out about it. He says they had not been made aware of the potential for such a tax when voters passed it in April. A June 27 email chain between Smoot and another business owner shows dismay and surprise at the topic — they had not known ahead of time that the Board of Aldermen was pushing for such a tax.
At a Green Park Board of Aldermen meeting held on Dec. 16, 2024, when the idea of the tax was first mentioned publicly, Ward 3 Alderman Martin Finn asked former Mayor Tim Thuston about the ballot measure that would allow the city to levy a commercial property tax, saying, “Has there been any communication from any of the business owners in Green Park regarding this?”
Thuston responded, “No.”
Finn asked, “Will there be any communication?”
Thuston said, “If they ask, yes.”
After a brief discussion, Finn raised the issue again, saying, “I’m just thinking of our communication to the people doing business in Green Park.”
Thuston’s response to that was, “Well, they’ll find out real quick.”
Meeting minutes from public Board of Aldermen sessions from July to October — when the board was in discussions about approving the new tax rate — were not made public until Jan. 22, hours after The Call requested those minutes.
