Department of Revenue Wishlist

Last month, the Montana Department of Revenue released its tentative legislative agenda for the 2009 legislative session. What's so interesting about this agenda? The lack of just about every failed DOR proposal from the 2005 regular session, the 2007 regular and the first 2007 special session.

You may recall that many of the DOR proposals were aimed at going after "tax cheaters." After reading the fine print in these bills, it was clear that many of these proposals would have raised taxes on businesses, forced other business to do the work of the department, and generally made our state tax code even more complicated for all Montanans. Most people are looking for simpler tax code.

While the goal of making everyone pay their fair share is an important one, the legislature (on multiple occasions) saw these proposals were fatally flawed in their approach to tackling the problem.

I suspect that the absence of these proposals on the department's agenda for the next session is more about a strategy change than anything else. Instead of having the administration lead the charge on these proposals, the department will most likely find legislators to bring the old proposals forward while the department acts as more of a cheerleader, rather than the champion.