Ryan Busse proposes Montana property tax cut after rates shot up under Gov. Gianforte
The Democratic nominee for governor has criticized the Republican incumbent for failing to solve the problem.
Democratic Montana gubernatorial nominee Ryan Busse and his running mate Raph Graybill released a simple plan on Aug. 15 to address Montana’s skyrocketing property tax bills: reduce the rates by 30%. Incumbent Republican Gov. Greg Gianforte rejected a similar recommendation from the Montana Department of Revenue in 2022, instead opting to provide corporate tax cuts and capital gains tax savings for the rich.
As many wealthy investors from outside Montana buy up land, longtime residents of the state have seen their estimated residential property values increase. With an annual property tax calculated as a set percentage of those values, the median bill increased 21% in 2023, the Montana Free Press reported in December, meaning hundreds of dollars in additional tax burden. In several western Montana communities, it was even higher: 46% in Flathead County, 62% in Madison County, and 74% in Granite County.
“The government doesn’t need any more money, year to year. Home values going up doesn’t make the government greedier,” Graybill previously told the Montana Independent. “And so what the last four governors have all done — two Democrats, two Republicans — is when home values go up, they just lower the property tax rate. So you bring in the same amount of taxes, you just lower the rate.”
Deborah and Tony Newville are neighbors of Gianforte’s who saw the property tax bill for their Bozeman-area home, which they inherited from family, jump by $4,835 in 2023.
“The property tax issue was something that hit me hard,” Deborah told the Montana Independent of the more than 70% increase. “This place goes back to my parents buying it in ‘68, and we’re trying to hold on to the place. And it gets pretty difficult when the odds are against us, which is simply the property taxes. I mean, you have your normal bills that already hit you, but then to have the property taxes on top of it. I mean, we’re paying over $1,000 a month just for property taxes.”
The Busse-Graybill proposal would reduce the property tax rate from 1.35% to 0.94%.
For the Newvilles, that would mean thousands in savings. “He could fix it, remedy this quickly, rather than waiting for I don’t know how much time,” Deborah said.
After months of study, a Gianforte-appointed task force released its own Aug. 15 property tax recommendation. It would create a homestead exemption for primary residences worth up to about $1 million, lowering the tax rate to 1.1%, while raising rates on second homes and short-term rental properties, and would require a supermajority in a public vote for localities to increase their own tax rates.
For the Newvilles, this would mean less in savings.
Busse said in a press release that the governor’s proposal is “a complicated, multi-point plan that ultimately means more taxes and doesn’t provide immediate, permanent tax relief to ordinary Montanans. … Gianforte didn’t get the memo even when his own Department of Revenue put it right under his nose and said, ‘look!’ Montanans in every corner of this state are hopping mad about Gianforte’s property tax increase, especially when they learn his property taxes went down last year. Instead of a tax cut, the Governor delivered only more taxes and more red tape.”
While Montanans like the Newvilles saw their property tax bills significantly increase, Gianforte’s own bill actually dropped by $600 in 2023.
Republican U.S. Senate nominee Tim Sheehy successfully appealed the state’s valuation of his multimillion-dollar Big Sky vacation home, saving tens of thousands of dollars in property taxes.
