Taxes major focus for legislature
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The legislature has finished the halfway point of the 90-day session. The House of Representatives has voted on all of our general bills, and now we will begin reviewing more bills from the Senate.
The legislature has been working on making Montana’s tax structure more competitive with our neighboring states. One area of concern is our business equipment tax. You may have heard of this tax, especially if you’re a businessperson. When any Montana business buys equipment to help them with their business – like a combine for a farm, a backhoe or a motor grader for a contractor – the state taxes them every year until they dispose of the equipment. The problem with that is it inhibits job creation, especially when neighboring states do not tax equipment in this manner. When a business buys new equipment, they have to hire people to run it. That means jobs for Montanans. But the business equipment tax penalizes businesses for buying new equipment. The legislature is considering exempting a large amount of equipment that would otherwise be subject to this tax thus benefiting the majority of our employers and employees.
The legislature is considering permanent property tax relief along with simplifying Montana’s income tax structure and lowering tax rates for Montanans.
Property taxes have been a subject where there’s disagreement this session. The governor wants to provide a one-time rebate, but the majority in the legislature prefer a long-term tax cut.
We passed some major bills defending our Second Amendment freedoms. As Washington, D.C., talks about limiting your gun rights, your Montana House of Representatives voted to strengthen those rights.
We also provided a solution for the “corner crossing” issue. It’s a complicated issue. There are some parcels of public land that can’t be reached, because they’re surrounded by private property. One of the proposed solutions to that issue was to simply allow people to trespass where the corners of private property and public property meet, since jumping from one corner to another didn’t seem like that big of a trespass to some people. But hunters pointed out that, between hauling out game, 4-wheelers or other equipment, sometimes it’s not possible to cross at the corner without touching private property. So the majority in the House of Representatives brought forward a better bill. We provided new funding for the block management program to compensate landowners if they let the public access Montana’s public lands through their privately owned land. That, plus one forthcoming bill, will make it easier for Montanans to get access to our public land.
As always, you don’t have to come all the way to the capitol to participate.
If you have any input about specific bills, please don’t hesitate to contact me by email at greghertz11@gmail.com or call or text me at (406) 253-9505. You can also leave messages for individual legislators or committees by calling (406) 444-4800. For more information on Montana’s 63rd legislative session, visit the legislature’s website at www.leg.mt.gov.
