Mo. Rev. Stat. » Chapter 144
Missouri Revised Statutes

Mo. Rev. Stat. § 144.080 (2026)

Seller responsible for tax

✓ current as of May 2026
Find cases: SyfertCases citing this section MO-REVrevisor.mo.gov Justiaon Justia CornellLII Search CasesGoogle Scholar

  144.080.  Seller responsible for tax — rules — returns — advertising absorption of tax, stated on invoice or receipt — violation, penalty. — 1.  Every person receiving any payment or consideration upon the sale of property or rendering of service, subject to the tax imposed by the provisions of sections 144.010 to 144.525, is exercising the taxable privilege of selling the property or rendering the service at retail and is subject to the tax levied in section 144.020.  The person shall be responsible not only for the collection of the amount of the tax imposed on the sale or service to the extent possible under the provisions of section 144.285, but shall file a return with the director of revenue showing the person's gross receipts and the amount of tax levied in section 144.020 for the preceding filing period, and shall remit to the director of revenue, with the return, the taxes levied in section 144.020 as provided in subsections 2 to 4 of this section.  The director of revenue may promulgate rules or regulations changing the filing and payment requirements of sellers, but shall not require any seller to file and pay more frequently than required in this section.

  2.  Where the aggregate amount levied and imposed upon a seller by section 144.020 is in excess of five hundred dollars per calendar month during the previous calendar year, the seller shall file a return and pay such aggregate amount on a monthly basis.  The return shall be filed and the taxes paid on or before the twentieth day of the succeeding month.

  3.  Where the aggregate amount levied and imposed upon a seller by section 144.020 is five hundred dollars or less per calendar month, but is at least two hundred dollars in a calendar quarter during the previous calendar year, the seller shall file a return and pay such aggregate amount on a quarterly basis.  The return shall be filed and the taxes paid on or before the last day of the month following each calendar quarterly period.

  4.  Where the aggregate amount levied and imposed upon a seller by section 144.020 is less than two hundred dollars per calendar quarter during the previous calendar year, the seller shall file a return and pay such aggregate amount on an annual basis.  The return shall be filed and the taxes paid on or before January thirty-first of the succeeding year.

  5.  The seller of any property or person rendering any service, subject to the tax imposed by sections 144.010 to 144.525, shall collect the tax from the purchaser of such property or the recipient of the service to the extent possible under the provisions of section 144.285, but the seller's inability to collect any part or all of the tax does not relieve the seller of the obligation to pay to the state the tax imposed by section 144.020; except that the collection of the tax imposed by sections 144.010 to 144.525 on motor vehicles and trailers shall be made as provided in sections 144.070 and 144.440.

  6.  Any person may advertise or hold out or state to the public or to any customer directly that the tax or any part thereof imposed by sections 144.010 to 144.525, and required to be collected by the person, will be assumed or absorbed by the person, provided that the amount of tax assumed or absorbed shall be stated on any invoice or receipt for the property sold or service rendered.  Any person violating any of the provisions of this section shall be guilty of a misdemeanor.  This subsection shall not apply to any retailer prohibited from collecting and remitting sales tax under section 66.630.

­­--------

(RSMo 1939 § 11411, A.L. 1941 p. 698, A.L. 1943 p. 1012, A.L. 1945 p. 1865, A.L. 1947 V. I p. 553, A.L. 1947 V. II p. 431, A.L. 1951 p. 854, A.L. 1963 p. 198, A.L. 1965 p. 261, A.L. 1969 H.B. 537, A.L. 1979 S.B. 218, et al., A.L. 1994 S.B. 477, et al., A.L. 1998 H.B. 1301, A.L. 2015 H.B. 517 & 754, A.L. 2021 S.B. 153 & 97)

(1982) "Dirt bikes" are motor vehicles for purposes of the sales tax law, and seller is not required to remit sales tax.  Lake & Trail Sports Center v. Director of Revenue (Mo.), 631 S.W.2d 339.

Notes of Decisions
Cited in 16 cases, 1958–2020 · leading case: Fabick & Co. v. Schaffner, 492 S.W.2d 737 (Mo. 1973).
Sort: Relevance Newest Treatment
Fabick & Co. v. Schaffner, 492 S.W.2d 737 (Mo. 1973). · cites it 7× “285 and in no way affects sections 144.080 and 144.100, which require all sellers to report to the director of revenue their ‘gross receipts’, defined herein to mean the aggregate amount of the sales price of all sales at retail, and remit tax at three per cent of their gross…”
Norwin G. Heimos Greenhouse, Inc. v. Dir. of Revenue, 724 S.W.2d 505 (Mo. 1987). · cites it 4× “For example, § 144.080, RSMo 1986, requires the seller to collect the sales tax from the purchaser.”
Farm & Home Sav. Ass'n v. Spradling, 538 S.W.2d 313 (Mo. 1976). · cites it 2× “” Section 144.080 requires the seller (not the purchaser) to remit the sales taxes to the Director of Revenue.”
In Re Jackson, 268 F. Supp. 434 (E.D. Mo. 1967). · cites it 2× “Section 144.080, subsection 2, V.A.M.S. In the case of motor vehicles, the applicable statutes provide that "at the time" the owner "makes application to the director of revenue for an official certificate of title and the registration of said automobile," he must "present" to…”
May Dep't Stores Co. v. Dir. of Revenue, 748 S.W.2d 174 (Mo. 1988). · cites it 2× “020, and these consist only of retail sales in Missouri.”
State Ex Rel. Thompson-Stearns-Roger v. Schaffner, 489 S.W.2d 207 (Mo. 1973). “In defining a “purchaser” as the person to whom either “ownership” or “title” is transferred, the legislature must have intended to include not only transactions in which the person who pays the purchase price is the recipient of the legal title to the property, but also to…”
VIROEN v. Schaffner, 496 S.W.2d 846 (Mo. 1973). · cites it 2× “Since 1965, appellants have been filing quarterly sales tax reports showing their gross receipts as required by § 144.080 1 and have paid under protest the tax thereon at the rate of 3%.”
State ex rel. Von Hoffman Press, Inc. v. Saitz, 607 S.W.2d 219 (Mo. Ct. App. 1980). · cites it 2× “Additionally, dishonesty is more directly deterred by the penalty provision of § 144.080, RSMo.1978 which makes violations of the law requiring returns a misdemeanor.”
State v. Longstreet, 536 S.W.2d 185 (Mo. Ct. App. 1976). · cites it 7× “00 fine on each of two counts following jury-waiver trial of an information charging failure to file timely sales tax returns and pay tax under § 144.080, RSMo 1969. The information, filed by the Prosecuting Attorney of Montgomery County, alleged that James Thomas Longstreet is…”
Hern v. Carpenter, 312 S.W.2d 823 (Mo. 1958). · cites it 2× “Corporate plaintiff would be required to collect the sales tax at the time of sales to purchasers if the sales under those circumstances are subject to a sales tax (section 144.080, paragraph 3). The sales tax act was approved in January 1934 and, at the time, the motor fuel tax…”
Automatic Retailers of Am., Inc. v. Morris, 386 S.W.2d 901 (Mo. 1965). · cites it 2× “060) ; the seller shall make returns (§ 144.080) of all taxes collected “or required to be collected” and shall remit "the taxes so collected or required to be collected * * * ”; the seller (§ 144.”
Int'l Bus. MacHines Corp. v. State Tax Comm'n, 362 S.W.2d 635 (Mo. 1962). “§ 144.080. Furthermore, the stipulation and claim that IBM has in fact paid these taxes is contrary to the express provisions of its rental contract in which the lessee customer agrees to pay all taxes except personal property and income taxes which IBM agrees to pay.”
Show all 16 citing cases →
Annotations are extracted automatically from the opinions in the Syfert caselaw corpus and ranked by authority, recency, and treatment. Dots show Syfertize treatment of the citing case itself.