Property Taxes

Property Taxes are Too High

Property taxes are hitting homeowners and renters hard because, over the last few decades, the system has gotten out of balance. Industry used to carry a much bigger share of the property tax load. Then the legislature started handing out tax breaks to favored businesses, and homeowners got stuck with the difference. That’s crony capitalism, and it’s the government picking winners and losers. It’s time to stop. Make the favored industries pay their fair share, and cut the tax on the roof over your head.

Here's a paragraph that sums up this position nicely:

You know where that quote came from? That's a snapshot of my opponents website from October of 2024. Wayback Machine October 2024 (opens in a new tab)

As we can now see, she went to Helena and did nothing of the sort. In fact, she did a complete 180. There was no rebalancing of residential property taxes and favored industries. In fact, it became much worse. She voted Yes on HB 424. (opens in a new tab) That bill extended and expanded the property tax cuts for data centers, which were one of the favored industries that gets a huge tax break. This bill gave them an 85% tax break on their power generation.

She broke her promise and then made it worse.

The property tax bill that passed, HB 231, didn't fix the break on favored industries, and it didn't reduce the total amount of residential property tax. It just moved things around in a giant shell game. Some people did well, others not so well. But everybody's property taxes are still going to be going up.