The Montana State Capitol in Helena on Wednesday, April 26, 2023. (Photo by Mike Clark for the Daily Montanan)
Sen. Dave Fern, a Democrat from Whitefish, is a co-sponsor to a property tax reduction bill that’s popular with Republican leaders — but he’s not going to vote for it anymore.
Senate Bill 90 would redirect lodging and rental car taxes to a new account that would reimburse 230,000 residential property taxpayers an estimated $440 in the first year.
The lead sponsor is Sen. Carl Glimm, R-Kila, and the other sponsors all are Republicans, Sens. Mark Noland, of Bigfork, Rep. Amy Regier, of Kalispell, and Senate President Matt Regier, of Kalispell.
Late on Monday afternoon, more than 40 opponents told the Senate Local Government committee the bill would gut Montana’s $5.4 billion tourism industry and have far reaching effects on the economy.
Fern said he liked the idea behind the bill, one of several proposals to help residential property taxpayers, but he found the testimony compelling from people who benefit from the money the legislation would redirect.
Representatives from farms, hotels, small businesses, tourism, and arts and culture testified against it.
Fern said he changed his mind partly because of the scope of the impacts, the far geographic effects, and because of the argument that as spending on tourism diminishes, the money that’s supposed to go to help property taxpayers falls as well.
“It’s a good lesson on just fully understanding what you sponsor,” Fern said.
But Fern said he’s still pleased the conversation took place; the more “thinking out of the box” approaches that come up, the better. Also, he offered, “I’ll say something somewhat controversial.”
If the industry is worth nearly $5.5 billion, he said, it makes sense to capture more of those dollars somehow, “without using the term sales tax,” but in a way that keeps commerce going at the same time.
“This is a really significant industry, and our tax policy doesn’t really match how our economy works as fully as I would like it to,” Fern said.