The Montana Department of Revenue recently sent property classification and appraisal notices to all owners of residential, commercial, industrial, and agricultural land properties.

They include the department’s determination of market or productivity value and the taxable value for your property that will be used by your county treasurer to determine the property taxes owed for tax year 2023 and 2024, according to a DoR release.

Many property owners have said their taxable values jumped significantly this year.

In July, public meetings in cities and towns across the state will be held to help taxpayers understand the property valuation process and how the department determined the new values on their appraisal notices. Go to MTRevenue.gov for the dates, times, and venues of the public meetings being held.

The Great Falls meetings are set for July 10 at 11:30 to 3:30 p.m. and 4:30-7 p.m.

The meetings were initially scheduled in the county annex, but have been moved to the Holiday Inn Great Falls-Convention Center at 1100 5th St. S. to accommodate more people.

“The new market values that appear on appraisal and classification notices are a result of how the real estate market has impacted sales prices across the state. We have seen the popularity of Montana grow significantly in 2020 and 2021, resulting in higher selling prices for property. The department is tasked with valuing property at 100 percent of its market value, therefore the value shown on the notice is what you could expect your property to sell for in today’s market,” according to an email from the DoR’s property assessment division to The Electric.

According the DoR, property taxes are calculated with these formulas:

• Current Market (Assessed) Value x Tax Rate = Current Taxable Value
• Current Taxable Value  x Millage Rate/1000 = General Property Taxes

More information on how to interpret the assessment notice is located on the DoR website.

Property owners can, and should, verify their property data on the website at property.mt.gov, according to DoR.

According to the DoR figures, the 2023 median residential value is $237,800, which is a 31 percent increase over the previous appraisal year, or an increase of $56,400.

The median value is the “middle” value of residential or commercial properties within the county, meaning that half of the properties are valued higher than the median and half are valued lower, according to DoR.

Several local residents attended the July 5 City Commission meeting said they were concerned about the increase in their appraised values from the state and how that would impact their taxes.

The notices from the state included an estimated tax impact, but city officials said during the July 5 meeting that those numbers may not be accurate.

Mayor Bob Kelly said that the taxable value of his home rose by about 40 percent, but using last year’s mill value, estimated that his local taxes would go up about 15 percent.

Melissa Kinzler, city finance director said that they don’t receive the newly taxable values from DoR until August so have made budget projections based on the previous year’s values, but that when someone’s taxable values increase, it doesn’t represent an increase in revenue for the city.

She said that when taxable values go up, typically the mill value goes up and the city levies fewer mills so taxes don’t increase as significantly.

She said it’s not necessarily the case that local taxes will increase at the same rate as the taxable values.

Kinzler said the state does property reappraisals every two years, but this round is more dramatic than the past.

City Manager Greg Doyon said they’re aware there’s been fear and confusion from taxpayers about the appraisal notices.

He said the tax impact isn’t likely to be what property owners are seeing in those notices but they won’t know for sure until the city receives its certified taxable values in August and sets its mill levies.

Doyon said because of the state’s tax cap, the city can only raise a certain amount of new revenue, even if property values increase.

From 2013 to 2022, the compound annualized growth rate in city taxes was 3.52 percent.

A year over year comparison of values of total value increases by county or taxing jurisdiction back to 2014 can be found on our website here.

According to the DoD data, the market value of commercial and residential property in Great Falls in 2022 was $6,328,057,598 and the taxable value was $107,111,238.

The property appraisal division said they don’t have anything posted to their website that compares reappraisal years, but each November of even years, the department is required to report to the Legislature’s Revenue Interim Committee the estimated increases in reappraisal.

In 2022, the department reported that based on preliminary modeling of the 2023 reappraisal cycle, the estimated changes in property values would be:

Under state law, DoR is required to provide a taxable value neutral rate for residential, commercial, and agricultural property on a statewide basis. The table below from the November 2022 report shows the current law tax rate for these properties and the estimated taxable value neutral rates using the estimated growth rates for each class of
property:

The 2022 report to the legislative committee included maps showing the estimated increase in market values by county and showed 30 percent for Cascade County, lower than some of the other major counties, with a high of 64 percent