Pay to attract more tourists, or to lower property taxes?

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State Senator Carl Glimm Thursday, December 19th, 2024   9:16am  

Here’s a rhetorical question for Montanans: would you rather state government spend public money on things like billboards in Chicago to attract more tourists, or use that money to lower your property taxes? 

I know exactly how my constituents in the Flathead Valley would answer that question and I’m sure their opinion is shared by other Montanans. That’s why I’m bringing a bill in the upcoming legislative session to change how the state uses money collected from lodging taxes and car rentals. 

For years, tourists and Montanans alike have paid a tax on their hotel stays and rental cars. It’s one of the only ways Montana—without having a sales tax—can collect revenue from the millions of tourists who visit our state every year. 

What those taxes are used for has fluctuated over the years, but one of the primary uses has been state-sponsored recruitment of more tourists. Because everyone pays the lodging tax when staying at a hotel, that means, for example, Montana families who travel to another town for a soccer tournament have been unwittingly contributing to multi-million-dollar advertising campaigns to bring more tourists into the Last Best Place. 

We don’t need that. A lot of people have moved here in recent years. Campgrounds are full and you now need a reservation to get into Glacier National Park during tourism season. We have a housing shortage and escalating home values have contributed to higher property taxes. 

Senator Daniel Zolnikov, R-Billings, made a good change to the lodging tax in the 2023 legislative session, directing more of the money toward dealing with the impacts of tourism, and only promoting tourism in economically depressed places that could use more of it. 

My proposal is to go one step further in 2025: keep a smaller percentage of those taxes going to the purposes Sen. Zolnikov outlined in Senate Bill 540 last session, but use the majority of the money to reduce property taxes.

Initial estimates are that my draft bill (LC0627) would save every Montana resident homeowner and renter up to about $400 on property taxes every single year. 

With my bill, tourists would be helping pay for things like road infrastructure by taking some of that burden off property taxpayers. And the traveling soccer mom paying the lodging tax at a hotel would get a break on her family’s property taxes instead of her money heading out of state to advertise Montana. 

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Senator Carl Glimm, R-Kila, is the Chair of the 2025 Legislature’s Finance and Claims Committee, which handles the state budget.