Missouri residents with Iowa addresses? McCaskill wants to fix ‘one of the dumbest’ problems

Missourians in some of the state’s most northern counties have strangely been stuck with Iowa mailing addresses for decades, according to a letter U.S. Sen Claire McCaskill sent the postmaster general this week.

McCaskill, a Missouri Democrat, states in the letter to Postmaster General Megan Brennan that the issue affects residents of at least six Missouri counties and that according to the presiding commissioner of Clark County the problem has existed for at least 30 years without a clear explanation from the U.S. Postal Service.

“This address issue causes residents, businesses, and local governments of these six counties a wide variety of unnecessary burdens,” McCaskill writes in the letter. “Residents state that it can take several months to obtain death certificates, and local police officers believe that their Missouri drivers’ licenses are fraudulent because they have Iowa addresses.”

The letter also states that Iowa addresses are incompatible with Missouri’s voting system and the state’s student information system.

“A small, local tax and accounting firm in the area has indicated that the addresses have caused their clients considerable confusion and frustration on their Missouri State Income tax returns… and with the state of Iowa, which believes these Missouri residents should be filing Iowa Tax Returns because of their addresses,” McCaskill states.

McCaskill’s letter calls on the Postal Service to take action to resolve the issue and to assign a dedicated contact person to work with the communities impacted.

“The notion that Missouri residents have faced numerous hassles for decades because they have an Iowa mailing address is one of the dumbest things I’ve come across,” McCaskill said in an email to reporters.

This story was originally published November 24, 2017 at 5:40 PM with the headline "Missouri residents with Iowa addresses? McCaskill wants to fix ‘one of the dumbest’ problems."