Section 24 Post-Keller Cases

• Library: Tax Law 2009

In cases after Keller v. Marion County Ambulance District, 820 S.W.2d 301 (Mo. banc 1991), Missouri courts have relied on the five Keller factors as a test for determining whether the contested charge should be classified as a tax or user fee. In the first Hancock case decided by the Supreme Court of Missouri after Keller, Beatty v. Metropolitan St. Louis Sewer District, 867 S.W.2d 217 (Mo. banc 1993), the Court applied the five Keller factors and held that sewer service charges imposed by The Metropolitan St. Louis Sewer District (MSD) were subject to Hancock’s voter approval requirement. In Missouri Growth Ass’n v. Metropolitan St. Louis Sewer District, 941 S.W.2d 615 (Mo. App. E.D. 1997), the court applied the Keller facts to MSD’s sewer charges imposed under a revised user charge ordinance, which included significant changes in billing of user charges. Because of these changes, the court concluded that the charges under the new ordinance were user fees and not a tax subject to the Hancock Amendment. Id. at 624.

In Home Builders Ass’n of Greater St. Louis v. City of St. Peters, 868 S.W.2d 187, 190 (Mo. App. E.D. 1994), the court applied the five Keller, 820 S.W.2d 301, factors and held that a city ordinance requiring developers to deposit money into a trust fund for use by subdivision lot owners to enforce trust covenants did not violate Hancock’s voter approval requirement because, under Keller, the charge imposed by the ordinance more closely resembled a...