Understanding your tax bill

October in Missoula County means one thing to most people … tax bills! Hopefully, that’s not actually the case for most people, but in the Clerk and Treasurer’s Office, it certainly is.

Throughout August and September, local taxing jurisdictions – which, in addition to the county, include local school, fire and other special districts − finalize their budgets and determine the amount of tax dollars they’ll need to levy to fund those budgets. They submit these numbers to the Missoula County Finance Department, whose staff work with the Montana Department of Revenue to produce a tax assessment roll. In mid-October, our office formats those tax assessments onto the single tax bill we send to you. This year, we expect to mail those tax bills on Oct. 28.

Property taxes for most Missoula County residents increased this year due to the increase in the assessed value of their property, which averaged 12 percent countywide. Those whose property values stayed the same will likely see a decrease in taxes. That is ultimately the conundrum with property taxes: While we would all like our property values to increase, we see the burden of any increase immediately, while only seeing the benefit upon a sale.

Each year our office receives a lot of protested payments. Unfortunately, most of those protested payments are not legally valid and we cannot honor them. To legally protest your taxes, you must have filed an appeal of your valuation with the Department of Revenue (DOR) in July or become party to a declaratory judgment action within 90 days. The DOR receives a lot of appeals in July, more than they could possibly resolve by the time we send out tax bills in October, so many property owners still pay their taxes while they await the outcome of their appeal. Protested payments ensure those taxpayers who followed the process can still recover that money despite the DOR’s heavy workload.

If you missed the July deadline, and believe you could not sell your house for the market value listed in the bottom right corner of your tax bill, we encourage you to file an AB-26 (valuation appeal form) that can be found on the Department of Revenue’s website. Although this will not affect your 2019 tax bill, a corrected value may appear on your 2020 bill.

Finally, we encourage you to take advantage of the many online resources Missoula County offers with respect to your property. You can view your taxes before you receive your bill and pay them online by visiting missoulataxes.us. Additionally, you can research your property (and its assessed value relative to your neighbors) by visiting missoulaproperty.us and exploring the information there.

Ultimately, the law presumes that you are responsible for acquiring the information necessary to make informed decisions about your taxes. We believe in providing you as much access to that information as we can and offer more direct access to it than any other county in Montana and most other counties or parishes across the country.