Tim Sheehy directly lobbied Montana governor to slash taxes for out-of-state investors
The Republican US Senate candidate has previously urged tax cuts for millionaires like himself.
In 2022, Montana Republican U.S. Senate nominee Tim Sheehy urged the state’s Republican Gov. Greg Gianforte to introduce a tax cut that would benefit wealthy out-of-state investors.
Sheehy, a millionaire former business executive, is challenging Democratic incumbent Sen. Jon Tester in November’s election. In recent years, Sheehy has donated tens of thousands of dollars to help elect Republicans in Montana and elsewhere. At least $2,000 of that went to Gianforte’s campaigns; Sheehy has called Gianforte a close friend and mentor.
According to materials obtained via a public records request and shared with the Montana Independent, Sheehy sent an email to Gianforte’s personal Gmail address on March 8, 2022, cc’ing the governor’s chief of staff Christine Heggem, in which he urged changes to the state’s tax system. Sheehy wrote that while recruiting investors for his drone company Ascent Vision Technologies, he discovered that the state’s tax code was a “potential barrier for future small business, venture and growth investment into Montana companies from out of state individuals.”
“We discovered this during the scaling and eventual sale of AVT wherein out of state investors in a MT company are taxed on the sale of those shares at the MT State Capital Gains tax rate on top of whatever their home state tax is. For out of state investors based in lower income tax states, this presents a deterrent for investing in MT based corporations,” he said, suggesting that exemptions from capital gains taxes for investors who do not reside in Montana be enacted.
A year later, Gianforte signed a major cut to Montana’s capital gains tax, which apply to both out-of-state and in-state investors. The Montana Department of Revenue estimated that the change would reduce state revenues by almost $16 million in 2025 and close to $20 million in subsequent years.
Neither Sheehy’s campaign nor Gianforte’s office immediately responded to a request for comment.
This is not the first time Sheehy had pushed for tax policies that would benefit wealthy individuals like himself over working families.
In a February interview with the right-wing outlet Breitbart News Saturday, he said the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act passed in 2017 under President Donald Trump should be made permanent.
That law slashed tax rates for the wealthiest Americans, while barely cutting or even raising taxes for everyone else. The provisions are set to expire in 2025; the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimated in May that extending them would add $4.6 trillion to the national debt over a decade.
In June, the Montana Independent reported that Sheehy had successfully appealed the valuation of his multimillion-dollar vacation home in Big Sky, saving himself tens of thousands of dollars in property taxes, while ordinary Montanans are facing significantly increased property tax obligations.
Wealthy investors are buying up Montana lands, increasing estimated residential property values for longtime residents. An April poll found 51% of registered Montana voters blame property tax increases on homebuyers from out of state.
