137.280.  Failure to deliver list, penalty, exceptions, second notice by assessor required before penalty to apply — assessor to transmit log to fund, when — electronic assessment list or notice. — 1.  Taxpayers' personal property lists, except those of merchants and manufacturers, and except those of railroads, public utilities, pipeline companies or any other person or corporation subject to special statutory requirements, such as chapter 151, who shall return and file their assessments on locally assessed property no later than April first, shall be delivered to the office of the assessor of the county between the first day of January and the first day of March each year and shall be signed and certified by the taxpayer as being a true and complete list or statement of all the taxable tangible personal property.  If any person shall fail to deliver the required list to the assessor by the first day of March, the owner of the property which ought to have been listed shall be assessed a penalty added to the tax bill, based on the assessed value of the property that was not reported, as follows:

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The assessor in any county of the first classification without a charter form of government with a population of one hundred thousand or more inhabitants which contains all or part of a city with a population of three hundred fifty thousand or more inhabitants shall omit assessing the penalty in any case where he or she is satisfied the neglect is unavoidable and not willful or falls into one of the following categories.  The assessor in all other political subdivisions shall omit assessing the penalty in any case where he or she is satisfied the neglect falls into at least one of the following categories:

  (1)  The taxpayer is in military service and is outside the state;

  (2)  The taxpayer filed timely, but in the wrong county;

  (3)  There was a loss of records due to fire or flood;

  (4)  The taxpayer can show the list was mailed timely as evidenced by the date of postmark;

  (5)  The assessor determines that no form for listing personal property was mailed to the taxpayer for that tax year; or

  (6)  The neglect occurred as a direct result of the actions or inactions of the county or its employees or contractors.

  2.  Between March first and April first, the assessor shall send to each taxpayer who was sent an assessment list for the current tax year, and said list was not returned to the assessor, a second notice that statutes require the assessment list be returned immediately.  In the event the taxpayer returns the assessment list to the assessor before May first, the penalty described in subsection 1 of this section shall not apply.  If said assessment list is not returned before May first by the taxpayer, the penalty shall apply.

  3.  It shall be the duty of the county commission and assessor to place on the assessment rolls for the year all personal property discovered in the calendar year which was taxable on January first of that year.

  4.  If annual waivers exceed forty percent, then by February first of each year, the assessor shall transmit to the county employees' retirement fund an electronic or paper copy of the log maintained under subsection 3 of section 50.1020 for the prior calendar year.

  5.  An assessor may, upon request of a taxpayer, send any assessment list or notice required by this section to such taxpayer in electronic form.