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A looming deadline raised the possibility this week that thousands of landlords wouldn’t get their paperwork to the Montana Department of Revenue in time to avoid being saddled with major tax increases under the state’s new second-home tax.
As we reported Monday, the landlords for as many as 110,000 Montana rentals — nearly three-quarters of the state’s rental stock — hadn’t applied as of Feb. 19 for second-home tax exemptions available for long-term rental properties.
Unless that picture changed dramatically before the March 1 deadline, we noted, those landlords could be staring down hefty tax increases of perhaps 50% or more. In many cases, the tab could subsequently end up passed to tenants, boosting housing costs as a result of legislation intended to ease the property tax burden on Montana’s residents.
The response we heard from no small number of readers with Montana rental properties can be boiled down as follows: Oh, $%^&*.
Then, as landlords across the state scrambled to upload their application materials to the revenue department’s portal this week, the system began to buckle under the load.
Thursday afternoon, a press release arrived in my inbox stating that the administration of Gov. Greg Gianforte had decided to push the application deadline back by three weeks, to midnight on March 20, citing “intermittent technical issues” with the application portal.
“Because of the overwhelming number of Montanans utilizing the portal to claim the lower tax rates, we are extending the deadline to ensure that no one is penalized by a technical glitch,” said the governor, who campaigned on the second-home concept during his 2024 re-election campaign.
It’s a rubber-meets-the-road moment for the second-home tax, where state tax officials are relying on exemption applications to sort out which properties should be taxed with higher rates intended for vacation homes and Airbnb-style rentals and which deserve the lower rates designed to offer relief to everyday residents after years of soaring property values. The second-home tax law assigns higher tax rates by default, leaving any property owner who doesn’t manage to navigate the new system in a lurch, even if they otherwise qualify for a lower tax bill.
In contrast to rentals, most owner-occupied homes automatically qualified for a “homestead” exemption after successfully applying for last year’s property tax rebates. Any homeowners who haven’t qualified are also up against the March 20 deadline.
Exemption application materials and instructions are available at homestead.mt.gov. Homeowners, landlords and tenants can also check their home’s application status via a lookup tool on the revenue department website.
—Eric Dietrich
Verbatim
“I’m not so sure that I’ve changed. I’m not sure that I was not speaking out of sheer frustration with an agency on behalf of people that were being overwhelmed. I do not believe that we’re going to go out and wholesale land from the federal government. That, again, has been stated by the [Interior] secretary, and federal law says we can’t do that.”
— Steve Pearce, a seven-term Republican congressman from New Mexico nominated by President Trump to lead the Bureau of Land Management
Pearce made that comment in response to a question from Sen. Ron Wyden, a Democrat from Oregon, about whether he believes there is too much land under federal ownership in the West. The exchange happened before the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, which met Feb. 25 to consider the pending nominations of Pearce and others for federal leadership positions.
During the two-hour-long hearing, Pearce answered more questions from both Republican and Democratic senators about his views on federal land sales than about any other topic. Ever since Pearce’s nomination announcement in November, conservation and recreational groups have been abuzz with anxiety about the 245 million acres of BLM land that would come under Pearce’s purview if the Senate confirms his nomination. Those concerns stem from a range of statements Pearce has made and legislation he’s supported, including a 2016 bill that sought “to provide for the orderly disposal of certain Federal Lands.”
Pearce appeared to be walking a slippery political tightrope during the hearing, expressing his displeasure with the state of federal land management without kneecapping his own nomination by openly supporting federal land sales, which he’s explicitly supported in the past as a way to reduce federal expenditures and drive down the deficit.
For his part, Montana Sen. Steve Daines, a committee member, asked Pearce about the Land and Water Conservation Fund and forest management. The two were on the same page on both subjects, calling for aggressive forest thinning and LWCF funding to expand recreational access to BLM land.
Daines spokesperson Gabby Wiggins later told MTFP that the senator intends to support Pearce’s nomination.
— Amanda Eggert
Public comment 🗣️
Ever find yourself criticizing Montana’s public transit (or lack thereof)? Now is the time to make your voice heard!
The state Legislature’s Transportation Interim Committee is conducting a survey on how to improve public transportation, including rideshare apps (such as Uber and Lyft), trains, flights and specialized services for people with limited mobility, among other things. People have until noon on April 10 to complete the survey.
Sen. Russ Tempel, R-Chester, who chairs the Transportation Interim Committee, said the biggest barrier to developing public transportation in Montana is cost.
“The cost of setting these things up is astronomical,” he told Montana Free Press in a recent interview, adding that upgrading a rail route can cost billions of dollars and establishing a bus line can be hundreds of thousands of dollars. “It’s not an easy task anymore.”
The goal of the survey, he said, is to better understand Montanans’ transportation needs. That way, when questions of cost arise, lawmakers can point to data about what Montanans need and what they already have access to.
While most cities in Montana have some bus lines and Amtrak travels across the Hi-Line, many rural towns have no public transit options.
Former state lawmaker Jasmine Krotkov lives in Neihart, a town of fewer than 50 people nestled in the Little Belt Mountains in north-central Montana. She said residents must drive 40 miles south to White Sulphur Springs or 60 miles north to Great Falls to access medical care or buy groceries. And not everyone feels safe making the drive alone, especially during the winter. It’s a dilemma felt across rural Montana, she said.
“There are plenty of instances of elderly people who want to age at home and really shouldn’t be driving and have no choice but to drive,” she said.
— Nora Mabie
By the Numbers 🔢
That’s how many Olympians have been born in Montana — enough to rank the state seventh in the nation per capita.
Those 58 athletes work out to 5.8 Olympians per 100,000 residents, nearly double the national average of 3. Only six states have produced Olympians at a higher rate, with Vermont taking the top spot and North Carolina coming in last.
Of the 58 Olympians, 19 took home 24 medals. Lones Wigger, Jr. had the most, winning golds in shooting in 1964 and 1972 and a silver in 1968.
Interestingly, the distribution of Summer and Winter Games competitors from the state is fairly even at 45% and 55%, respectively, much less lopsided than Hawaii, which skews 97% in favor of producing summer Olympians, or Vermont with nearly 85% participating in the Winter Games.
— Jacob Olness
Following the Law ⚖️
U.S. District Court Judge Donald Molloy Feb. 20 dismissed Montana’s TikTok ban, ending the conflict over a 2023 law. Plaintiffs alleged that the legislation violated the First Amendment and overstepped states’ authority by wading into foreign policy.
The 2023 Montana Legislature passed the ban, the first of its kind in the country, over concerns that China might access private user data. The law has languished since before it went into effect, blocked by a lawsuit filed by TikTok and several of its Montana users.
In 2024, President Joe Biden signed a national TikTok ban that allowed the app’s owner, ByteDance, to avoid going dark by selling the app to a non-Chinese entity. Montana’s TikTok ban had a similar clause.
So when ByteDance finalized a deal to establish a new entity to own and operate the app in the U.S., Montana’s ban was all but over. Molloy’s ruling last week sealed its fate.
Highlights ☀️
In other news this week —
• A ruling by a federal appeals court has dealt a setback to hundreds of lawsuits filed by Libby asbestos victims.
• A conservative think tank believes Montana should rewrite its Constitution. Montanans have thoughts.
• A fatal disease is spreading rapidly within the state’s elk and deer populations. Game managers are doing what they can.
On Our Radar
Nick — I never met Mike Smith, a longtime reporter for the Montana Standard in Butte who died unexpectedly this week. After reading the obituary by his colleagues, I wish I had.
Matt — I don’t get on the bicycle saddle as much as I’d like to these days, but that doesn’t stop me from dreaming about distance routes. Lately, I’ve been gazing at the Great American Wheel Route, a coast-to-coast trail with some of the most strenuous segments running along the Rockies of Montana and Idaho.
Zeke — Wheat stem sawflies are nasty buggers that can wreak havoc on Montana’s Golden Triangle. The U.S. Department of Agriculture recently unveiled a new technique: introduce tiny wasps that seek out sawfly larvae, paralyze them and lay eggs inside an immobile breakfast.
Mara — I was craving some version of a homemade mac n’ cheese the other night and decided to try my hand at an experimental roux based on this recipe and whatever else I could find in my kitchen: butter, whole wheat flour, non-dairy oat milk, salt, pepper, cheddar cheese, an egg yolk and… sour cream. For reasons that surprised even me, it really worked.
Eric — A rather slippery walk to work this week (complicated by having a somewhat unpredictable dog in tow) got me wondering why some winter storms drop snow and others blanket everything with god-awfully treacherous freezing rain. This explainer from the National Weather Service fills in a knowledge gap I probably wouldn’t have if I’d paid more attention in seventh-grade science class.
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This week’s edition of Lowdown was edited by Nick Ehli with additional copy editing by Mara Silvers.