There is a lot of blame being shifted on the issue of property tax reappraisal figures that may cause many Montana small businesses to pay much more on their property tax bill.
Republican leaders called a press conference yesterday to point out this problem, and speculating that a special session may be needed to fix the problem. Many legislators are placing the blame on the Department of Revenue for getting the estimates to them very late and incorrectly. This has led to reappraisal figures that are higher than the Legislature intended.
The Governor placed the blame squarely on the shoulders of the legislature as a whole:
"People who have unfairly had their taxes raised, of course they can protest it. That will work for some. For others, they should look to find a legislature that is more competent than this last one, and they can fix it in the next legislative session."
Wow. Did he really say that?
Whoever is to blame, it appears the Governor and the Department of Revenue are not too anxious to do anything about it. Even in this bad economy, the Governor doesn't appear all too eager to help our the thousands of small businesses that could be hurt by this mistake. His statements go back and forth between saying "there isn't really a problem" to "if there is a problem, it wasn't my fault and I don't want to do anything about it."
We will continue to look at this situation and see whether it merits a call for a special session. Now is not the time to be over-collecting taxes from Montana's job creators.