VIENNA — Use tax revenue is possibly being misdirected to the wrong county, according to Presiding Commissioner Vic Stratman at the April 20 and 23 commission meetings. He spoke with Trish Vincent, the director of revenue, who is investigating the matter and thinks he is probably right.

Because ZIP codes are assigned according to post office service areas, they do not necessarily reflect city and county limits. Therefore, an address in Maries County could have a ZIP code for a city in a neighboring county because it is served by that city’s post office. However, sales and use taxes apply to the county of that address’ location, not the ZIP code city.

Sales tax is for in-person purchases at businesses, and use tax is for online purchases delivered to that jurisdiction.

For example, a house’s address could be in Rolla, MO 65401, but located in southern Maries County. If a resident orders a package on Amazon, the use tax that the Department of Revenue collects should be distributed to Maries County. But the commissioners think that Phelps County is receiving that income.

“We don’t want to give them all our money either,” said Patrick Kleffner, western district commissioner.

Conversely, Maries County might be receiving revenue from online orders to houses in Belle, MO 65013, in Osage County. However, the commissioners believe that Maries County is losing more revenue that it should be receiving than collecting revenue that it shouldn’t.

“It looks like over half of the county has got different ZIP codes outside of Maries County,” Stratman said.

Rodney Southard, eastern district commissioner nominee, wants the DOR to hold the money until the proper distribution is figured out, and he suggested obtaining a list of the addresses in those areas that should be paying use tax to Maries County.

The following ZIP codes cover parts of Maries County, but are assigned to cities with post offices outside of the county:

• Argyle, MO 65001 (Osage)

• Bland, MO 65014 (Osage)

• Meta, MO 65058 (Osage)

• Rolla, MO 65401 (Phelps)

• Dixon, MO 65459 (Pulaski)

• St. James, MO 65559 (Phelps)