Riley County losing out on $661,000 in revenue since mortgage tax phase out

Riley County lost out on $661,000 in tax revenue in 2019 mortgage registration fees after the Kansas legislature voted in 2014 to begin a five-year phase out of fees, said Debbie Regester, the county’s register of deeds.

“I guess I’m the only register of deeds in the state of Kansas that still continues to gripe about this or bring it to the board,” Regester said. “In counties that are much larger than ours, I can’t even imagine how much revenue they’ve lost.”

In 2018, the last year of the tax’s phaseout, the county collected $200,792 in mortgage registration tax fees. No tax was collected in 2019, but Regester said that if the 0.026% mortgage registration tax were still in place, the county would have collected $661,000.