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Montana Department of Revenue staff told a legislative committee Monday that next year's reappraisal cycle could produce a partial repeat of last year's jarring tax spike as the state's surging real estate market continues to translate into higher residential taxes. The department expects the market value of the average Montana residential property to be reappraised at 21% higher when it completes next year's reappraisal cycle. A staff economist said Monday that if the Legisla...
Low-income Montanans seeking help paying their property tax bills now have until June 1 to apply for aid through two state relief programs administered by the Montana Department of Revenue - including the flagship Property Tax Assistance Program intended to keep property tax bills from forcing low-income homeowners out of their homes. This year's application deadline, previously set for April 15, was extended in an effort to give Montanans facing substantial tax hardship more...
The supplemental property tax bills heading to property owners around the state this spring, made necessary by a November Supreme Court decision, represent a monumental headache for both local tax officials and homeowners. They also illustrate how the tax issue has driven a wedge between Gov. Greg Gianforte, a Republican seeking re-election this year, and local government leaders across Montana’s political spectrum. Nearly all of the dollars collected by Montana’s property tax system flow, directly or indirectly, to loc...
Last year, during a dispute with Gov. Greg Gianforte over the state's "95 mill" school equalization property tax, officials with 49 of Montana's 56 counties chose to reduce their fall tax bills against the wishes of the Montana Department of Revenue. This month, after landing on the losing side of a November Montana Supreme Court ruling, those counties' treasurers are left with the thankless task of sending supplemental property tax bills to hundreds of thousands of property...
The record-breaking cold snap Montana saw this month brought days of below-zero temperatures across the state - and with them what major Montana utility NorthWestern Energy said was record-high electric demand from its customers. The arctic blast, and how the state's energy system responded, triggered a wave of analysis from folks engaged in Montana's running debate over renewable energy, coal generation and the future of the state's electric grid. The Montana Environmental...
A federal judge issued an order November 30th blocking Montana's first-of-its-kind ban on social media platform TikTok, preventing the ban from taking effect as scheduled on Jan. 1. The ban, which passed this year's Legislature as Senate Bill 419, would have barred TikTok from making its app available to Montana users. By blocking the ban while a legal challenge moves forward, U.S. District Court Judge Donald Molloy signals that he believes the company and other plaintiffs...
The Montana Supreme Court recently ruled against Montana county governments in a dispute over the Montana Department of Revenue's authority to order the full collection of the 95-mill state-level school equalization levy, a formerly obscure piece of tax bills that became a flashpoint this fall as state and local officials contended with frustration over rising property taxes. The ruling means that the 49 of 56 Montana counties that chose to collect a lower, 77.9-mill rate on...
Just how religious is Montana? Given the highly personal nature of faith, there may be few concepts harder to quantify. However, the U.S. Religion Census makes an effort once a decade regardless, tallying the number of congregations associated with different denominations and their self-reported membership county-by-county across the nation. Notwithstanding the "God's County" nickname regularly applied to Montana's landscape by faithful and secular-minded residents alike, the...
Flanked by dozens of Republican lawmakers on the steps of the state Capitol, Gov. Greg Gianforte signed a tax cut, rebate and spending package totaling more than $1 billion Monday. The eight-bill package, which provides short-term property and income tax rebates and also cuts state income taxes on an ongoing basis, puts a major slice of the state's estimated $2.5 billion budget surplus toward what the governor called "the largest tax cut in Montana history." The bills also...
University of Montana law professor and Montana Constitution expert Anthony Johnstone has been nominated by President Joe Biden to serve as a judge for the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, the White House said Friday. Johnstone is currently the Helen and David Mason Professor of Law at the University of Montana's Blewett School of Law, and he published a book on the Montana state Constitution this year. His past experience also includes serving as an attorney in the Montana...
A proposed property tax cap and three other ballot initiatives supporters had hoped to put before Montana voters in November's general election are dead in the water after failing to meet signature-gathering thresholds, their respective backers have said. The failed proposals included CI-121, which would have amended the state Constitution to dramatically reconfigure Montana's tax system by capping residential property taxes. That initiative, sponsored by Bozeman attorney...
On paper at least, Montana's newly drawn Eastern U.S. House district is Matt Rosendale's to lose. The incumbent U.S. congressman, elected to represent the whole state by a 12-point margin in 2020, had his re-election bid endorsed by former President Donald Trump in November and by the Montana Republican Party in February, four weeks before the deadline for candidates to file for the June 7 primary. With Montana's left-leaning university towns drawn into the Western district,...
by Eric Dietrich and Brad Tyer People have been parsing the human lifespan into a taxonomy of ages forever. Aristotle proposed three categories: youthful, prime of life, and elderly. Two thousand years later, Shakespeare's Seven Ages of Man carved human chronology into seven slices, with the body's final frailty circling back to the original oblivion of infancy. And in the 1980's, British historian Peter Laslett proposed a revised map of three ages, with a caveat for the...
