How would You fix the problems in Montana? (Missoula, Whitefish: environment, property taxes)

[GLS]

Originally Posted by jimj

GLS,
I do believe that their would be no reduction in services if we went to just a sales tax. Tourists come here year round in droves and would generate quite a bit of revenue. Sales tax is a choice tax because you "choose" to buy things. That being said you would probably tier grocery tax.

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You have a valid hypothesis, but my concern is that, as always, the "devil is in the details" of implementation. For example, tiering, or even exempting the grocery sales tax appears to be a clear-cut decision in protecting the locals.
However, where do you draw the line? In attempting to shift the burden from Montanans to tourists, it is difficult to separate services that only tourists use, but locals don't. Most resort areas that have decided to add a sales tax to hotels, ski tickets, restaurants, etc. risk reducing total tourist dollars, but more importantly, you selectively injure the Montanan small businesses that provide these tourist services.

Trying to build upon your idea, here is my suggestion. We need to get some hard data about the feasibility of a major policy tax shift. Could you contact someone in Montana government about a pilot study, or someone at the University of Montana. Researching exactly where the break-points would be in property vs sales tax would make an excellent graduate student thesis or publishable paper on urban planning or business economics. We need some valid reasearch data to carry your hypothesis to the next step.

Originally Posted by jimj

...you have to remember that income tax pays for quite a bit in this state so as a part time resident you are not contributing anything but property tax, the full time people are picking up part of the tab for a part timers ability to live here and that's not right.

In the instance of a person living there 3 to 6 months out of the year, but never working there to generate income tax, I agree. But, your original point was for a "non-resident landowner". I can't see how a person visiting his land one or two weeks a year consumes enough services to offset the property tax paid. I will defer on this until we get that research data. For example, would it hurt a carpenter more to continue to pay property tax on a saw, or a new high sales tax on buying new tools?

Originally Posted by jimj

I don't think that Montana is business friendly, quite the contrary actually.

Originally Posted by 8 SNAKE

What about tax incentives for businesses? I'm not familiar with the infrastructure of Montana, but the general feel I get on this forum is that the area lacks good jobs outside of tourism and construction.

Combining the above quotes helps explain the anger toward newcomers and the developing negative interactions between Montanans and "outsiders". If the survival of the state depends primarily upon the two industries that bring the most people and growth we have a real paradox. Again, since this thread emphasizes "solutions", I suggest approaching whatever local and State business councils are responsible for recruiting new businesses to Montana. There needs to be a concerted campaign to diversify from the two industries most likely to generate complaints from Montanans. You can't keep inviting everyone to dinner, then complain they ate all the food.

[GLS]

Originally Posted by jimj

GLS,
We here in the Flathead have a wonderful county superintendant and underperforming local superintendants. These fifedoms (yes, that's exactly what they have become) are counter productive and expensive. There are 0many school districts with only 1 or 2 schools that have a superintendant that gets $100k plus a year and a full support staff, buses and their support staff and a full school board and their expenses. This is a complete waste of money and just adds layers of crud when anyone tries to get anything done and fosters nepotisim. All this money could be going to pay for the things that really matter and this needs to change!
So, these are my thoughts......

I will accept what you are saying since I don't know anything about the school system there. Therefore, please help me understand where the inequity in resource allocation is coming from. There must be some very strange historical reason that one school district comes out with all the cash. Is the source of the problem political corruption, district size based upon resident income, etc, etc?? If we want to move to a solution and pump the system clean, we have to first identify where the septic lid is.

[8 SNAKE]

Originally Posted by GLS

Combining the above quotes helps explain the anger toward newcomers and the developing negative interactions between Montanans and "outsiders". If the survival of the state depends primarily upon the two industries that bring the most people and growth we have a real paradox. Again, since this thread emphasizes "solutions", I suggest approaching whatever local and State business councils are responsible for recruiting new businesses to Montana. There needs to be a concerted campaign to diversify from the two industries most likely to generate complaints from Montanans. You can't keep inviting everyone to dinner, then complain they ate all the food.

I'd really like some of the locals to talk more about this aspect. It would appear to me (an outsider), that tax breaks for residents would only serve as a bandaid, rather than a solution to the problem. The problem seems to be a lack of businesses that offer people good jobs. Attracting new businesses would pump a lot of money into the local and state economies, bring in new tax revenue and help to diversify the employment beyond tourism and construction.

[montanahogrider]

Well a lot of the problem with attracting new business or industry to Montana is the lock it up and protect it mentality of some of the folks here. We have a lot of natural resources that can be utilized without much impact on our environment. But looking for new tech type industries can be good too. But there is a trade off with new tech vs old. That is that new tech uses just as many natural resources as old tech but also leaves a much more hazardous waste that we have to dispose of. More pollution and global warming anyone? So where do the answers lay? Each small area of Montana is a bit different, in the Northwest is Logging, in the southwest tourism as is the north central, the east farming and ranching and interspersed throughout we have different types of ming, power plants etc. Whatever the solutions we will have to take the combined impact of these industry's and new technology's to heart. Reducing our own footprint helps but we have to have jobs too.

[jimj]

Whitefish has a "tourist tax" and it hasn't slowed tourism in the least but has generated quite a bit of revenue. The problem is that it affects locals as well since they have to pay it. A good example of the negative affects is there is a sports store in Whitefish and another branch in Kalispell, most locals will see something in the store in whitefish and then go to Kalispell to buy it so as not to pay the tax.
There has been many studies done on a sales tax here and in fact it's been placed on the ballot many times and voted down. It's my understanding that it's been defeated because they will not place into law that the property tax and income tax will not be reinstituted unless voted back in. What they say is "we will use the sales tax and stop or lower the property tax but with no guarentee that it won't be brought back". Now you know as well as I do that the minute everyone becomes comfortable with the sales tax the government will slowly leak back in the other taxes claiming they need more money and that has everyone steamed and we don't trust them for obvious reasons.

As for non-residents your property taxes cover a portion of roads,schools,fire and infrastructure and income tax pays the rest. So non-residents get services year round but only pay a portion of the load and needless to say don't contribute to the local or regional economy except when in residence.
I guess what confuses me the most is how business unfriendly this state is but it's house crazy. Houses don't generate tax base,especially spread out ones, business's do so you'd thing they would want more business's here. This is part of the reason that cities are pushing for high density. The more houses they can push onto a plat of land the more it pays for itself in services. 8 houses on an acre is going to add more to the pot than 1 house on that same acre and a business is going to add way more than either...

[8 SNAKE]

Originally Posted by montanahogrider

That is that new tech uses just as many natural resources as old tech but also leaves a much more hazardous waste that we have to dispose of. More pollution and global warming anyone?

You're assuming that new businesses would have to involve some type of manufacturing (that produced waste). That's not the case at all.

[montanahogrider]

Yes Whitefish, West Yellowstone and Red Lodge all have that 3% tourist tax that everyone has to pay. The tax goes to pay for some of the infrastructure so they say. I know Red Lodge uses it to promote more tourism for that area, and pay for the county rodeo grounds. So in some areas folks are paying 3 taxes, property, income, and Tourist taxes. Then the rest of us get hit with a business tax as well. This is what I am afraid of when people start messing around with the taxes. They seem to remember to add the new and forget to reduce the old!

[jimj]

That is exactly why a sales tax has been defeated every time it comes up. I haven't run into anyone who is against the sales tax idea, they just want something more than a promise that property tax,income tax and business tax will be permanently lowered or removed. We all know how much a pols promise is worth!

[Heart]

Originally Posted by montanahogrider

Tell us what you think the problems facing Montana are, and how you would solve them. Remember that any decision you make will affect Montanans for the good and bad.

Well, first thing we need to do is rid ourselves of the evil californians that are migrating up here like locusts!





Just kidding, of course.

[TypicalCalifornian]

Don' tax you, don't tax me, tax that fella behind the tree.

Lot of nice places on have outsmarted themselves by these kinda quick fixes.

Ever notice how throughout all posts, and all topics is a dynamic wherein Montana needs something from outsiders whilst hating the thing that comes with it?

Montana as recently as 40 years ago was one of the 10 richest states primarily through agriculture and land intensive extraction. It is now something like the 49th poorest state, with 17 of the 20 poorest counties in America being in Montana (primarily eastern). Your problem is you need outside capital to solve many of your problems (Montana is also one of the few states that recieves more fed money than is sent to Washington), and I would argue you need some outside thinking although I personally am smart enough not to say that in a small town bar on kaorake night lol. One kind of thinking you don't need is this hippie-dippie thinking a lot of these posters moving here have about returning to some Paradise Lost, that probably never was really. Few of us would work as hard and under as much deprivation as our ancestors which was necessary to keep Montana simple. Mostly we want our DSL, the low prices of a Big Box store, etc.....we just wish the scenery was more like Brokeback Mountain while we get the latte.


Ya can't go back boys and girls, and all the good free ideas have been taken