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Did you recently receive a letter from the Montana Department of Revenue?

It's not a tax bill from Missoula County. It’s an appraisal notice issued by the Montana Department of Revenue showing the current assessed value of your property. DOR appraises the value of real property every two years, so the value listed on your form applies to tax years 2021 and 2022. The state DOR, not Missoula County, calculates this value, which is a key factor in determining the property taxes you’ll owe this year. Those property taxes help fund several taxing jurisdictions you live in, including the county.

If you feel the assessed value on your property is inaccurate, you must appeal it by Aug. 9 for the 2021 tax year. Filing an appeal means you are requesting a reappraisal of the property value. Do not wait until you receive your tax bill in October – it will be too late!

You can start this process in one of two ways:

  1. By submitting a Request for Informal Classification and Appraisal Review (Form AB-26) to DOR online at https://app.mt.gov/myrevenue/Endpoint/Form/3
  2. By appealing directly to the local County Tax Appeal Board (CTAB). In Missoula County, you can fill out that application online at https://mtab.mt.gov/appealform.

If you miss the Aug. 9 deadline, you can still appeal the assessment until June 1, 2022. But if you wait until then to appeal, any changes to your assessment would only apply to tax year 2022, not the 2021 tax bill you’ll receive this fall.

It’s also important to note that the estimated taxes listed on the notice are based on 2020 tax rates and do not include special assessments. Special assessments are determined by the location of your property, i.e., if you live in a certain school, fire, water quality or other special district. You can view the special assessments that will be levied on your property by downloading your current tax bill on the Missoula County iTax website at https://itax.missoulacounty.us/itax/.

To learn about Montana tax relief programs, visit https://mtrevenue.gov/taxes/tax-relief-programs. If you still have questions about your appraisal notice, you can talk to an appraiser from the local DOR property assessment field office, contact information for which is online at https://montana.servicenowservices.com/citizen/kb?id=kb_article_view&sysparm_article=KB0013893.

Signed,

Andrew Czorny; Chief Financial Officer; Missoula County

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