HELENA, Mont. — In early January, Gov. Greg Gianforte told lawmakers to get property tax relief bills to his desk by mid-February. Now with just a few days left before the Legislature’s halfway mark, several bills that cut at the issue in different ways are still alive.
One of the highest profile bills is House Bill 231, carried by Rep. Llew Jones, R-Conrad. It’s a Republican flagship that would create a “homestead exemption,” decreasing property tax for primary residences and shifting the burden to out-of-state property owners and short-term rentals.
“The intent of this bill was to identify those that were not paying for services in Montana and suggest that maybe they could participate and that potentially some short-term rentals were not classified correctly,” Jones said.
After over a month of amendments and party-line votes, the House passed the bill and transmitted it to the Senate Thursday.
A slew of tax credits aimed at alleviating the tax burden are still making their way through both Senate and House chambers, like Missoula Democratic Rep. Jonathan Karlen’s House Bill 154.
“This bill is a backstop that ensures that our constituents don’t face a property tax burden that exceeds their ability to pay it,” Karlen said. “And it essentially sets a threshold or a series of thresholds for which we can ensure that our constituents will never face a property tax burden that exceeds an affordable portion of their income.”
Karlen’s bill passed the House 59-39 and the Senate will now debate it.
And in the Senate, Sen. Carl Glimm, R-Kila’s Senate Bill 90 is on its third and final reading. The bill would redirect tax revenue from lodging and rental cars to property tax relief. That bill has passed on wide margins so far.
Clayton Murphy is a reporter with the UM Legislative News Service, a partnership of the University of Montana School of Journalism, the Montana Broadcasters Association, the Montana Newspaper Association and the Greater Montana Foundation. Murphy can be reached at clayton.murphy@umconnect.umt.edu.