Montana’s property tax system is a complicated thing, involving mind-boggling math and a bewildering array of rules aimed at fairly dividing the bill for public services like schools and police departments between hundreds of thousands of properties.

It’s a tricky task, of course, to agree on what exactly fair means when it comes to taxes — and a trickier one for lawmakers to write a tax code that implements a fair framework without loopholes. Earlier this week, Montana Free Press and High Country News published a lengthy investigation into a facet of the state’s tax code that has been a perennial concern on the loophole front for decades: whether a property tax break intended for farms and ranches is being abused by people who own luxury homes on rural parcels.

Our full story, which you can read here, runs more than 3,400 words. If you’re looking for something briefer, here are some of the key takeaways:

1. Agricultural tax status offers farm and ranch properties a discount relative to residential properties by marking down the value of the underlying land.

If you own a Montana home in an urban or suburban neighborhood, it’s almost certainly classified as a residential property. For those, both the house structure and the home lot beneath it are valued and taxed based on their market value — how much the Montana Department of Revenue thinks they would sell for.

Structures on agricultural properties are also valued and taxed based on their market value, but the underlying land is not. Instead, agricultural land is valued for tax purposes based on its production value — how much money the revenue department thinks its owner could make growing crops or grazing livestock.

That’s a significant difference. Home lot prices vary from place to place across Montana, but the average residential property had a land value of about $127,000 in 2023. Production values are much, much lower. Some of the properties we looked at, for example, had grazing land valued at less than $50 an acre.

2. The agricultural discount can translate into hundreds or thousands of dollars in annual tax savings.

One example we looked at was a property on the Flathead River near Kalispell, described in a Zillow listing as a “gorgeous Montana river estate” with a putting green and orchard. Classified as agricultural land, the 10-acre property paid about $7,000 in property taxes in 2023, all but $20 of that based on the value of the property’s structures, according to our analysis.

A 10-acre residential property next door, including a slightly less valuable home, paid about $9,100 in taxes in 2023, including about $3,300 in land taxes.

That sort of disparity is typical. For parcels smaller than 20 acres, we found that residential properties paid a median effective land tax of $1,609 an acre in 2023, compared to only $6.61 for agricultural parcels.

3. Critics worry that it’s too easy for high-end real estate to qualify for agricultural tax benefits.

Unlike most western states, larger Montana properties automatically qualify for agricultural tax treatment without being required to document that the land is being used for agriculture. Properties of 160 acres or more are automatically granted a full agricultural designation, while properties bigger than 20 acres automatically qualify for a partial agricultural designation that offers slightly reduced tax benefits regardless of whether the land is being put to significant agricultural use.

Smaller properties can qualify for the full designation by reporting at least $1,500 a year in agricultural income. Critics say that threshold, which hasn’t been updated since 1986, is low enough that savvy property owners can reach it with relatively little effort.

4. Thousands of million-dollar Montana homes are benefiting from the ag tax treatment. Gov. Greg Gianforte’s Bozeman home is one of them.

Looking at state property data for 2023, MTFP and HCN found more than 3,000 properties with million-dollar structure values that qualify for the full or partial agricultural tax benefit. In some cases, like the Flathead River example, those properties are adjacent to otherwise comparable residential properties, resulting in stark tax disparities.

Another example is Gianforte’s home on an 11-acre parcel with an agricultural designation on the outskirts of Bozeman. According to our calculations, the governor and his wife, Susan, paid about $5.75 an acre in land taxes on it in 2023 while a neighbor with a residential parcel across the street paid $826 per acre. (The governor’s office said that the Gianfortes’ property, which also includes additional parcels, is used for barley and alfalfa production and is also used to board horses and mules.)

The governor’s $66 land tax bill for the 11-acre parcel is also less than what the vast majority of urban homeowners in Montana pay each year for the lots beneath their homes.

5. Lawmakers could change the tax code as the Montana Legislature meets this year.

As the session opened in early January, there were two bills under consideration that would tighten qualification standards for the agricultural designations (House Bill 27) and increase taxes on homesite portions of high-value ag properties (Senate Bill 4).

Similar measures have floundered in the past, in part because of opposition from people who would face higher tax bills. The sponsors of both measures told MTFP this week that they are working on revisions to their proposals in an effort to make the bills politically viable.

READ MORE: Montana’s agricultural tax rules slash bills for thousands of million-dollar homes.

In the midst of a political battle at the start of the 2025 Montana Legislature, Sen. Mike Cuffe said Wednesday he wanted to present a bill to honor a fallen Vietnam war soldier from Libby.

Cuffe, R-Eureka, said it’s his eighth and last session, and he wanted to offer a bill to pay tribute to the late Staff Sgt. Arthur J. Rambo, who, he said, was nothing like the aggressive movie character.

“Rambo’s personality was 100% the opposite of the man in the movie,” Cuffe said. “There’s a very caring, giving man.”

The bill describes Rambo as a family man who was active in his community, in baseball and talent shows, and in college, sang in the Carroll College Carrolleers, where he met his wife, Helen Ryan.

After he started working with the family, Cuffe mulled the “wrangling,” “elbowing,” and “negotiating about one thing or another” that might be needed to get the bill passed.

But the political dispute in the Senate, over the makeup of committees, slowed its work, and it opened a window for the bill, one Cuffe believes has become even more necessary.

“This is a feel-good kind of a bill,” he said. “This is a very honorable kind of a bill. This is a bill, I believe, that is urgently needed.”

Rambo was drafted into service and didn’t seek an exemption for which he was eligible, the bill said, and Cuffe said some lawmakers were part of the draft too. In 1969, Rambo arrived in Vietnam, and a few months later, his unit came under attack.

“Staff Sgt. Arthur J. Rambo worked heroically under fire to save his crew members and their military assets,” said the bill. “He sustained fatal injuries and was awarded the Silver Star.

“ … He was survived by his wife, Helen, his daughter, Kerry Lynn, his newborn daughter, Amy Denise, and his extended family.”

Wednesday, after senators in a committee took another split vote related to how they would manage committees, they approved the measure to create a memorial bridge in Libby for Rambo on a 50-to-0 vote.

Cuffe said it would name the Highway 37 bridge that enters Libby from the north, and the sign would have language that honored Rambo along with other fallen veterans.

“In spite of all of our differences, our factions, our personalities,” Cuffe said, the bill “would help unite us, help us all feel human compassion.”

He also said he believes Rambo would appreciate it.

On the first day of the session, Monday, the Senate took a vote that upset a plan Republican leadership had planned for how committees would work, and some senators have canceled committee meetings or are holding “organizational” and “educational” meetings instead.

In its rules committee Wednesday, senators took another vote, this one to upend Monday’s proposal. Thursday, the full Senate will take up the matter, which affects the way minority Democrats are distributed among committees.

The Senate is currently under temporary rules, which distribute Democrats in a way the minority party wants, and with support, at least for the time being, from a small group of Republicans.

The Senate could make a change Thursday by adopting permanent rules, supported by Republican leadership, or it could operate under its temporary rules for the session, as it has in the past.

The Montana Legislature used to have the best legislative website in the country for tracking bills — that’s what Sen. Andrea Olsen was told roughly eight years ago.

This year, a new system launched, complete with new bugs.

The chief information officer for the Legislative Services Division said Wednesday a technology team is delivering code on a daily basis to fix the problems, and the goal is to have a top-notch system once again.

In the meantime, however, legislators, lobbyists and members of the public are running into roadblocks in trying to follow the work of the 69th Montana Legislature.

“Unfortunately, it truly is a disaster to start the session without efficient capacity to track bills,” Olsen said. “This is for us as legislators, but particularly for the public.”

Olsen, a lawyer, said the lack of transparency also runs contrary to protections in the Montana Constitution.

“We have a constitutional right to know, and a constitutional right to participate, and those two things are infringed when we have a system that is so difficult, and when there’s so many bugs to still work out,” Olsen said.

Jerry Howe, executive director of Legislative Services Division, and Dale Gow, chief information officer, said Wednesday the old system was a workhorse, but nonetheless, on its last legs.

Howe said he feared it wouldn’t make it through 2025, and the Legislative Services Division decided to create a new one in house. He said the goal is to have a website that works better than the old one, and the team is making progress.

“We understand that there is some frustration,” Howe said. “Be patient with us as we build this system from scratch. We think that people will be pleased with it as it unfolds and as it reaches its maturity.”

Problems, some solutions

Charles Denowh, with the Montana Group, has worked legislative sessions since 2003, and he said the old system was “very functional.” However, he said it was also dated, and the user interface was rudimentary.

“I understand why they decided it was time for an upgrade,” Denowh said.

He said Legislative Services couldn’t fully test the new system until the session started, and launching now means having to “fix it on the fly.”

“I feel bad for those guys,” Denowh said of the workers. “I know a lot of people are pretty angry at them. They’re fixing it as fast as they can, and I’ve been pretty impressed at how dedicated they’ve been to getting things right.”

He said he’s figured out some workarounds, but some features are still missing.

At least midday Wednesday, the third day of the session, he still hadn’t seen committee assignments listed on legislator pages. He’d also seen cancelled hearings still show up as taking place in a data export feature.

“That’s probably been the biggest difficulty I’ve seen is getting an accurate committee hearing schedule,” said Denowh, a lobbyist.

In the Senate, a political power struggle is taking place, and committee meetings have stalled. The stalling ended up demonstrating new shortfalls in the system too, Howe said.

“When they cancelled hearings in bulk, it created issues we had not foreseen or contemplated in the past,” Howe said.

On the other hand, he said it means developers can address it and create a more robust site.

“I’m not sure the old system would have accommodated the cancellations,” Howe said.

Howe said the redo didn’t come out of some desire to improve the system, it came out of necessity.

“We got through last session, but it took a lot of effort and work to hold that thing together,” he said.

A major upgrade was needed, and Gow said they decided to bring the project in house with a new suite of applications and the goal of “all the functionality that everybody has been using the past 30 years.”

They couldn’t dig into it right after the 2023 session because staff still have work to do afterwards, he said. They get funding to start their projects in July, but he said money wasn’t the issue, and time was.

“This was replacing 30-year-old technology within 10 months to get to baseline for the session,” Gow said.

A security application that was part of the project had some issues too, and that took nearly two months to sort out, Gow said. But he said the new applications are more secure.

“They used to be wide open,” he said.

In the past, he said, they relied on someone in Ireland to help fix system problems, and they decided to do the baseline work in their own shop in order to support the system themselves.

“Now we’re able to do all of these enhancements and bug fixes in house, and we’re able to turn those around very quickly,” Gow said.

People are calling to report problems, and since Monday, the number of tickets related to the new website was 51 as of Wednesday, Howe said. That’s out of 202 total tickets for all tech issues, such as a legislator needing help with a printer.

Gow said eight developers and six analysts are working to address problems, in addition to their other duties.

A timeline for when the new system could be considered largely complete wasn’t set.

“It does take time to develop software in that way, and we’re confident that in time, this new system will be able to accomplish all the needs the public has with respect to bill status and transparency of the legislative process,” Howe said.

Matt Leow, with Tenacious Campaigns, said the old system was not just functional, it was familiar. The lobbyist said the new system is making Capitol veterans like him, around for 20 years, feeling like it’s the first day of school.

“What people are doing to try to address the problem is they’re buying the subscription services, which is great if you’re a well-paid lobbyist, not so great if you’re a member of the public who wants to stay informed and get involved in the process,” Leow said.

Years ago, Olsen said she attended the National Conference of State Legislators, and software sales people trying to sell bill tracking programs wouldn’t try to sell to her when they learned she was from Montana.

“They looked at me and said, ‘Oh, well you already have the best system in the country,’” Olsen said.

So she said she appreciates the goal with the new system is to emulate the old one, although the clock is ticking with the lack of transparency.

“It’s a disaster for public notice purposes,” Olsen said.

Sen. John Fuller, a Kalispell Republican, said he hasn’t heard complaints from constituents, but the slowdown in the Senate is part of the bigger picture too.

“Of course, part of the problem is we haven’t done anything yet,” Fuller said. “When we start cranking stuff out, if it’s not fixed by then — I think it will be — but if we start cranking stuff out, then people have the right to get upset.”

He said no one is to blame because the project involves a lot of changes, and he knows staff are working hard on the “hiccups.”

“We’re trying to increase accessibility while maintaining cybersecurity. Duh. Those are opposing ends,” Fuller said.

Editor’s note: This story has been updated to include the number of tickets logged for problems with the website, which was unavailable at press time.