Montana gubernatorial race may determine whether soaring property tax bills continue

Democratic gubernatorial nominee Ryan Busse has a plan to address the soaring property tax bills Montanans have received under Republican incumbent Gov. Greg Gianforte: simply lower them back to where they were before. Gianforte is falsely claiming that this would amount to a tax hike.

With wealthy out-of-state investors buying up Montana land, property values have increased significantly over the past two years. As a result, property tax bills for many homeowners have increased by up to 74%, bringing in more revenue than the government needs. 

Gianforte’s Montana Department of Revenue recommended in 2022 that the state do what it had done under the past four governors — two Democrats and two Republicans — in similar situations: reduce the property tax rate to a revenue neutral level. Instead, Gianforte opted to budget the extra money to cut the capital gains tax for rich investors and give a corporate tax cut. He then offered homeowners a partial refund if they applied for it and appointed a commission to propose a long-term fix.

On Aug. 15, Gianforte’s commission proposed a homestead exemption for primary residences valued at up to about $1 million, lowering the tax rate for those residences from 1.35% to 1.1%, increasing the tax rate for short-term rentals and second homes, and making it impossible for localities to increase taxes without a supermajority public vote. 

Busse and his running mate Raph Graybill offered a simpler proposal: lower the property tax rate for everyone to 0.94%, back to the previous overall revenue levels. For many Montanans, this plan would mean significant savings. 

Mike Jopek, a Flathead farmer who served on the Montana House Committee on Taxation during his three terms as a Democratic state representative, told the Montana Independent that homeowners in fast growing areas would pay more under Gianforte’s complicated plan.

“Your taxes really could jump up significantly, and you might have to pay more, and maybe you get a rebate. Maybe you don’t. Nobody really knows those details,” Jopek said. 

Busse’s one-page fix, he added, has “always worked before, and it’s always been the way Montana did it.” Under Gianforte, “suddenly it’s got some complicated formula, who knows what and paperwork and more paperwork, and maybe you qualify, maybe you don’t.” He said Gianforte’s approach would help big energy, rail lines, and telecommunications companies, rather than homeowners. 

“The bottom line is this: Gov. Gianforte raised property taxes by as much as 111 percent,” Busse told the Montana Independent in an email, referencing a family in  Gallatin Valley whose bill rose by that amount. “That’s the largest increase in Montana history. What’s worse, he’s handed out tax breaks to millionaires and billionaires like himself, while pricing hardworking Montanans and seniors out of their homes.”

In a Sept. 18 appearance on the “Voices of Montana” radio program, Gianforte falsely blamed local spending for the increases and inaccurately claimed Busse’s property tax cut proposals should somehow amount to a tax hike: “My opponent has a plan that would actually increase property taxes on small businesses, farms, and ranches. I think that’s a bad idea.”

“This is 100%, categorically untrue. Ryan Busse’s plan is to lower property taxes on all classes of property,” Graybill said in an Oct. 1 response video. “The only person whose plan still raises taxes is, you guessed it, Greg Gianforte.”

Even Republican local officials have called out Gianforte for trying to pass the blame for property taxes onto them. 

“I’m sick of the lies being peddled out in the public by my governor and by other people writing letters to the editor who have no clue what it takes to run a city,” Kalispell Mayor Mark Johnson said at a December 2023 City Council meeting, according to a Daily Inter Lake report. “Once he finally understands [our budget], if he has some criticism or some opportunity to give us input, I will take it, but until that point the governor better shut the hell up.”