Is it “a problem that doesn’t exist?”
Helena City Commissioner, Paul Cartwright, questioned the logic of one of Montana’s ballot issues in Monday night’s Commission meeting.
“There is a CI-105. You could also call it the constitutional initiative to fix a problem that doesn’t exist,” Cartwright told the other commissioners. “I am not sure if it is a trick, I am wondering if it is,” Cartwright added.
“CI-105 amends the Montana Constitution to prohibit state or local governments from imposing any new tax on transactions that sell or transfer real property.” (I quoted this language directly from the initiative.)
Currently, the State of Montana does not tax these real estate transactions.
The Montana Association of Realtors has stepped behind this ballot issue and been advocating for its passage.
In a recent press release issued by Chuck Denowh, spokesperson for CI-105, he writes , “The average Montana homeowner would face a property tax increase of around $1,700 if a proposed Real Estate Transfer Tax were to be imposed by the legislature.”
“I think most Montanans would agree that we already pay enough in property taxes,” said Chuck Denowh, spokesperson for CI-105. “But there are some politicians that would have us pay more. That’s just double taxation—it’s not fair and we don’t need it in Montana.”
“Lawmakers have considered nine different transfer tax proposals over the past decade, and with a proposed tax rate of 1% of the property’s value it would significantly impact all Montana homeowners, business owners, and agricultural producers,” Denowh adds.
Denowh says CI-105 would prevent bill drafts from coming forward with Real Estate Transfer Tax proposals in the future.
Cartwright says CI-105 is a scam from the National Association of Realtors. He also claims N.A.R. dumped over $1 million into Montana to get this initiative passed. “Back in my day we used to call these outside agitators,” Cartwright added.
Then Cartwright went on to claim, “Perhaps the N.A.R. is bankrolling David and Charles Koch.” Cartwright claims the Koch brothers own a 250,000 acre matador ranch outside Dillon. He says CI-105 would help landowners like the Koch’s much more than it would the average Montanan.
“Is the National Association of Realtors in it to help me, or in it to help the Koch brothers?” Cartwright asked. “If you look around the table and can’t see who the sucker is, it would be you,” Cartwright said as he told the commission he will be voting against CI-105.
Helena Mayor, Jim Smith, also spoke out and said he didn’t understand the logic behind this initiative either.
The other Helena City Commissioners didn’t publicly state where they stood on the issue.
I would like to open up the dialogue here on The Banks Account, what do you think?
It’s another case where the money seems to tell the tale. Who’s paying for all of these advertisements and signature gatherers? I had an experience in Missoula with two kids gathering signatures this spring. While they were nice enough kids, they were clearly not from the area and had limited knowledge about the initiative.
I suspect the initiative will pass, though, given the the absence of a central opposition to it. Unfortunately, it seems like another example of the initiative process being subverted by the big money interests initiatives were meant to control.
Do we need another tax? What if you owe more than you can sell your house for? Adding another tax is like rubbing salt in the wound. I could care less about the one person that sells a place for $10 mil and gets a $100k tax – but I do care about the 50 people that sell for $200k and all get stuck with a $2k tax.
There is also the issue of the seller just raising the price of the property enough to cover the tax – not good when too many people cannot afford to buy a house now.
I think Cartwright is not thinking straight and is too focused on some rich guy not paying a tax that will affect far more people than just the few rich people. Remember, 98.7% of Montanans earn less than $250k – why penalize them just to get to the 1.3% that are “rich”?
I think there should be a tax/tax rebate at sale.
On the sale of property, to the extent that the total property taxes (not including SIDs) for the past five tax years exceeded five percent of the sales price of the property the owner gets a rebate on real estate taxes. However, if your property taxes over the last five years were less than 5% of the property sales price there is a “pickup” property tax paid at closing to the county treasurer.
For example, if my $200,000 house pays 2,500 in taxes each year I would get a rebate of $2500. If my $17,000,000 ranch pays $25,000 in taxes each year there would be an additional tax due at the time of sale of $725,000.
No, the problem exists. It exists twice every two years when bills are suggested to impose a transfer tax.
What people who fret about NAR’s involvment forget is that its our money. This money has come from your friends, relatives, and neighbors who pay to be a part of the organization. They’re the same one’s fighting for this, because they realize how detrimental this could be.
Government has proven it can’t be trusted with our money, why give them more?
Finally, Bob Oaks wants the money to go towards affordable housing. Can someone explain the logic of increasing taxes to make housing affordable…perhaps he’s self-interested?