State lawmakers are close to done, home soon explaining to locals where they’ve been all winter and what they did about the 2025 property tax reappraisal notices that’ll hit mailboxes come June. The 2023 state property tax increase on homes was huge and remains unfixed.
Decades ago, Montana was patient with me and my House and Senate colleagues by answering boxfuls of questions about property tax reappraisal. Civil servants from the revenue department painstakingly explained the math and appraisal process used to determine pending state property tax increases resulting from the state revaluing existing homes across Montana.
These were homes where locals likely lived for a generation, raised kids and built a town in the process. Locals would not see state tax increases if lawmakers changed the tax rate multiplier.
I carried that rate cut legislation for a the Joint Select Committee on Reappraisal back when lawmakers preferred a six-year home revaluation cycle. The longer cycle avoided constant taxing chaos. The approach also helped mitigate the effect to places in Montana with local mill caps.
The 2023 and upcoming 2025 state reappraisals spike home taxable values to a grade steeper than MacDonald Pass on the way to Helena while flatlining the taxable values of out-of-state corporations as if they rest in hospice. That kind of taxing chicanery makes it extremely difficult for locals to pass many fire, safety, or school levies. The fix remains as simple as it ever was.
Other governors in Montana reduced the multiplier of reappraisal to even. They simply assured the state didn’t collect more revenue from existing homes, farms, and business after it revalues property. The reason politicians feign confusion is because they seek to collect extra money.
A couple years back the revenue department held statewide meeting explaining why the values of homes increased by 42% across Montana. Two years ago, old news. The 2025 cycle hits mailboxes soon and increases values another 21% statewide. For Flathead homes, a 38% state property tax increase in 2023, now a proposed 31% state property tax increase this year.
Let’s be clear. The reason Montana homeowner property taxes have spiked and are now projected to skyrocket is because the state revalues homes every couple year and then levies mills against the increased taxable values. New ongoing revenue, they say. Tax increase, we say.
The revenue department figured the 2023 reappraisal alone increased home property taxes $500 million over two years, as homeowners become responsible for taxes previously paid for by out-of-state corporations like pipelines, telecommunications, electrical utilities, and railroads.
That half-billion-dollar increase gets baked into the cake and is $1 billion over four years, money from existing homes. Ring the Liberty Bell, show us the Spirit of 76. Make the 0.76 tax rate the law of Montana. It’s the percentage the revenue department calculated to give the money back.
From two state appraisals cycles, a million-dollar home in the Flathead sees a $900 per year property tax increase. In Glacier County, a half-million-dollar home sees a $1,500 a year property tax increase from two state appraisals. That’s like real money during expensive times.
For the state, keeping taxable values high via these two reappraisals means that Montana collects $140 million extra, every year, ongoing from existing homes. Farm and small business reappraisals add an additional $20 million per year, ongoing and permanent to the state budget.
The state Legislature is in the last days of the session. The Constitutional 90-day deadline approaching fast and members seek emergency legislative days in case a federal meltdown. Most things are settled. The atmosphere at the Capitol remains hot. Just old political scores to settle. I was there in 2007, the majority leader got the boot. Weird stuff happens in the end.
It matters less which bill the reappraisal multiplier goes into, as long as the Spirit of 76 finds its way forward for all Montanans. Lawmakers should give homeowners the 0.76 tax rate and stop overcharging grandma on the place she’d lived in for 50 years via two really big state tax revaluation of her home over four years.
Lawmakers should ring the Liberty Bell and make the Spirit of 76, the 0.76 tax rate, into law.
In defense of liberty and freedom from state overtax, lawmakers could help Montanans by not making living in our homes way more expensive every time members meet in Helena. There are equalizing multipliers to make small business and farms even. Lawmakers should enact them.
There’s all sort of trickery that occurs in the closing days of any Legislative Session. Unless the final solution to property tax reappraisal embraces the 0.76 tax rate, homeowners will pay more, and in many places, a whole lot more. Homeowners get their 2025 taxable values come June and learn what lawmakers did in their final days of Helena.
The last Legislature gave one-time rebates, a cheap substitute to ongoing property tax relief. One-time rebates remain complicated for grandma, rural folks, or owners of fee land in Indian communities. Montana deserves a simple, understandable solution. That’s not too much to ask.
Bloody hell, ring the Liberty Bell. HB 528 by Rep. Ed Byrne and Sen. Mary Ann Dunwell may be the last bus out of Helena and lawmakers should get on board and ride home. Soon enough, lawmakers will be home explaining. Byrne and Dunwell are the homeowner tax solution.
The Spirit of 76, that 0.76 tax rate, neuters both the 2023 and 2025 home reappraisals, letting homeowners simply keep their money. Many locals may even say, thanks for the tax cut.