Daily Montanan - Record Number Property Tax Reappraisal Appeals

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Read the article at the Daily Montanan by Aislin Tweedy

Excerpt:

“This year we have around 16,000, almost 17,000 appeals that have been filed in our system,” said Robin Rude, deputy administrator for the property assessment division of the Department of Revenue, earlier this month.

The onslaught of appeals comes as Montana homeowners and renters are projected to see the largest increases in property taxes in the Treasure State ‘s history, according to a recent presentation by former head of the Department of Revenue Dan Bucks.

Appraisals have increased as much as 40%.

Rude said the Department of Revenue is still getting the appeals accounted for. She said some counties are experiencing a higher volume of appeals, and the time to process them will depend on the volume.

“The smaller counties or the counties that didn’t see a large increase of value don’t have as many appeals filed,” Rude said. “Those will be processed quicker.”

Rude said some appeals may not be processed before tax bills come out. In those cases, people should pay their taxes under protest to ensure their rights to a refund in the event of a value reduction.

On average, property owners have filed appeals for roughly 2% or less of parcels in counties across the state, Rude said.

“Ravalli County to date has entered 579 appeals; this is more appeals than they have seen since we switched to the two-year reappraisal cycle,” said Rude. “ Yellowstone to date has 1,554, and they have processed 35% of those appeals so far. While this is more than they received in 2021, it is just slightly above the appeal levels of 2017 and 2019, and less than 2015.

Republican Gov. Greg Gianforte and some GOP legislators have said they provided property tax relief to help.

However, some Montana community members have taken to the social media app X, formerly Twitter, to speak about the difficulty of filling out the applications.