§ 137.095 RSMo — Corporate property, where taxed — tractors and trailers

1. The real and tangible personal property of all corporations operating in any county in the state of Missouri and in the City of St. Louis, and subject to assessment by county or township assessors, shall be assessed and taxed in the county in which the property is situated on the first day of January of the year for which the taxes are assessed, and every general or business corporation having or owning tangible personal property on the first day of January in each year, which is situated in any other county than the one in which the corporation is located, shall make return to the assessor of the county or township where the property is situated, in the same manner as other tangible personal property is required by law to be returned, except that all motor vehicles which are the property of the corporation and which are subject to regulation under chapter 390 shall be assessed for tax purposes in the county in which the motor vehicles are based.

2. For the purposes of subsection 1 of this section, the term "based" means the place where the vehicle is most frequently dispatched, garaged, serviced, maintained, operated or otherwise controlled, except that leased passenger vehicles shall be assessed at the residence of the driver or, if the residence of the driver is unknown, at the location of the lessee.

3. The assessed valuation of any tractor or trailer as defined in section 301.010 owned by a corporation and used in interjurisdictional commerce must be apportioned to Missouri based on the ratio of miles traveled in this state to miles traveled in interjurisdictional commerce during the preceding tax year or on the basis of the most recent annual mileage figures available regardless of the state in which the International Registration Plan fleet under which such tractor or trailer operates or maintains its base jurisdiction. Where historical distance records are unavailable, the average per-vehicle distance chart as described in section 320 of the International Registration Plan and which is provided to counties by department of transportation carrier services, or any other reasonable source of distance data, may be used.