Hutchinson ? Reno County has started requiring residents to pay personal property taxes on horse-drawn buggies.

County Appraiser Steve Bauman emphasized that anyone owning a buggy — not only Amish — should register it for tax purposes. Like golf carts, buggies will be taxed, but no vehicle license tag will be issued.

Reno County stopped taxing buggies when farm machinery became exempt more than a decade ago, said Sam Bontrager, owner of a harness shop south of Yoder, a largely Amish community where it is not unusual to see horse-drawn buggies daily along the roads.

The Old Order Amish are a Mennonite sect. Amish and Mennonites came to Kansas from Pennsylvania to live in the community founded by Eli Yoder in 1872.

After meeting with county officials, Bontrager agreed to help circulate the county tax forms at Sunday prayer gatherings. Forms also are available at Bontrager’s harness shop and at the appraiser’s office.

State law puts the responsibility on the owner to report personal property. Reno County does not conduct audits to ferret out unreported items.

“It’s basically on the honor system,” Bauman said.

The deadline to send personal property information is Monday, but the county has extended it to April 15 for buggy owners.

Efforts to schedule a meeting in January between representatives of the county appraiser’s office and the Amish community failed.

Bauman chalked it up to a “misunderstanding.”

Bontrager said, “I don’t think they tried very hard.”

Assuming an overall 125-mill levy, the Reno County owner of a four-wheel single-seat covered buggy in average condition could expect annual property taxes of about $37. Yearly taxes on a two-wheel single-seat uncovered buggy in average condition would amount to about $11.25.

A mill is $1 in taxes for every $1,000 in assessed valuation.

Reno County Commissioner Francis Schoepf, whose district includes Yoder, raised the topic of taxing buggies last summer, and Bauman said no special exemption could be found in state statutes.

Anderson County, in eastern Kansas, which has a sizable Amish community in Garnett, has levied personal property taxes on buggies for years, said that county’s appraiser, Gary Stapp.

Reno County’s buggy valuation guide ranges from a high of $3,000 — for a four-wheel, double-seat, covered buggy in excellent condition — to zero for a two-wheel, single-seat cart in unusable condition. The scale was based on local information and Internet research, Bauman said.

“This guide,” he said, “isn’t set in stone.”