Missouri Audit Finds $37,736 in County Tax Commissions Missing From Payroll Reporting

Missouri's state auditor found that Webster County paid its elected tax collector $37,736 in commissions for collecting municipal taxes without putting the payments through normal county payroll. The October 29, 2026 performance audit says the commissions were not reported on employee W-2 forms, appropriate payroll taxes were not withheld, and the employer's share of those taxes was not paid. Auditors warned of possible penalties and interest, but did not say any such penalty had been assessed.

The collector has written agreements with seven cities for tax-collection services. The agreements permit commissions, with rates varying by city and whether taxes are current or delinquent. The audit's finding concerns how the county recorded and reported those payments, not a determination that the underlying municipal collection agreements were illegal. The County Commission said it would work with the clerk and collector to resolve the issue.

Weaknesses beyond the tax collector

The state rated the county's audited operations “fair,” down from “good” in 2017. It reported deficient accounting controls in the sheriff's, prosecuting attorney's, clerk's, public administrator's and collector's offices. Auditors found $16,500 in receipts held by the county clerk for more than a month before transfer to the treasurer. Eight checks totaling $4,471 remained in the collector's accounting records despite having cleared or been transferred for unclaimed-property handling. The collector said the records were retained to preserve an audit trail; auditors said the entries were double-counted and prevented the book balance from reconciling with the bank balance.

The sheriff's office did not know when it last physically inventoried seized evidence. Four items on the inventory list could not be located in the evidence room during testing, but officials later produced release or destruction orders for all four. That finding documents a failure to update records, not proof that seized items were stolen. The sheriff's office also had 449 inmate-commissary checks worth $2,578 outstanding for more than a year as of December 2024. Officials said they had begun sending those balances to the treasurer for unclaimed-property processing.

A separate legal disagreement

Auditors concluded that $25,581 in salary increases for the sheriff during the official's term violated a Missouri constitutional restriction. The County Commission disagreed, arguing it had followed a 2021 law providing for phased pay increases and cited correspondence from the Attorney General's office. The auditor maintained that the correspondence was not a formal Attorney General opinion and that controlling case law supported its conclusion. The report records competing legal positions, not a judicial ruling settling that disagreement.

The auditor said the examination uncovered no fraud and welcomed county officials' stated commitment to corrective action. The public can now measure progress against specific tasks: proper payroll tax reporting, bank reconciliation, timely transfer of receipts, accurate evidence inventories and resolution of the disputed compensation issue. TFNOS examined the published state audit and contemporaneous reporting; it did not independently audit the county's finances or establish criminal wrongdoing.