About 21.4 percent of the cigarettes consumed in Montana are smuggled in from states that tax their cigarettes lower than Montana, where a pack is taxes $1.70. The tax on a pack of cigarettes in North Dakota is 44 cents; in South Dakota $1.53; in Wyoming its 60 cents; and 57 cents in Idaho.

The Tax Foundation estimates that Montana experiences $17.6 million in “foregone” revenue  due to smuggling. An estimated 10.3 million packs are smuggled into the state annually.

Tobacco is the most highly taxed consumer product in the United States.

Cigarettes are taxed at the federal, state, and sometimes even local levels. These layers of taxes often result in very high levels of taxation. Taxes make up nearly half of the retail price of cigarettes nationwide. In New York and Washington, D.C., more than 60 percent of the price paid by consumers comes from taxes.

Taxation varies greatly from state to state, and large differences in prices drive smuggling. Low-taxed products commonly find their way into high-tax states. For instance, in 2020, New York was the highest net importer of smuggled cigarettes. 53.5 percent of cigarettes consumed in New York were purchased illicitly or from other states. New York also has one of the highest state cigarette taxes at $4.35 per pack, and New York City levies an additional $1.50 cigarette tax per pack.

Layers of taxation force state and federal governments to consider each other’s tax policies. Because consumption is impacted by price, a federal tax hike, which would increase retail prices and shrink consumption, would impact revenue generated by state governments. In other words, federal tobacco tax increases decrease state tax revenue by driving down legal consumption.

More recently, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) proposed product standards that would further restrict the kind of tobacco products that can be legally sold. In 2022, the FDA proposed a ban on menthol cigarettes and flavored cigars. In 2020, menthol cigarettes accounted for 37 percent of the cigarette market. A menthol ban would decrease tax collections by more than $6 billion per year.

Even more impactful would be a very low nicotine (VLN) product standard. The FDA could propose a product standard that would limit the (naturally grown) nicotine levels in tobacco. The result could be a de facto prohibition on cigarettes. The consequences of such a ban would be greater in magnitude than any tobacco regulation or tax implemented to date.

Finally, excise taxes on tobacco are highly regressive. This means that low-income Americans pay a greater share of their income in tobacco excise taxes than higher-income groups. Consumption taxes are almost always regressive, but cigarette taxes tend to be the most heavily burdensome on low-income households.

The negative impact to Montana from the $1 federal excise tax is $3.3 million. Negative impact due to the federal flavor ban is $8.6 million. Negative impact of a VLN product ruling would be $79.3 million for Montana.

Given the past few years of escalating property values it probably won’t be a surprise for most people when they get their Real Estate Assessment Notices and see an increase in their property values  – but then again – it may be quite a shock for some and alarming to many people as to what it means regarding their property tax bill.

At the very least, the Montana Department of Revenue (DOR) anticipates that there will be a lot of questions about what the increased values for both commercial and residential properties will mean.

The Montana DOR is mailing property classification and appraisal notices to all owners of residential, commercial, industrial, and agricultural land properties on June 30. These notices are not tax bills. They include the department’s determination of market or productivity value and the taxable value for property that will be used by your county treasurer to determine the property taxes owed for tax year 2023 and 2024.

In order to meet those questions head-on the agency is planning to hold two informational meetings in Yellowstone County in July.

Paula Gilbert, DOR’s Appraisal Manager for Yellowstone Count said, “People are going to see large changes in their values. Because the market in Montana has been so strong these past several years, most values have gone up dramatically. Some people will look at those assessments and panic.”

It is hoped that the informational meetings will help to “relieve some of that panic.” Ideally, if property values go up, mill levies go down. What mill levies will be won’t, of course, be known until the fall when property tax statements are issued.

The first meeting will be at the Billings Library on Thursday, July 6, 4-7 pm.

A second one will be held on Tuesday, July 11, 9:30 am in conjunction with the country commissioners regular weekly meeting, 3rd Floor of the Stillwater Building. Gilbert said that at that meeting there will be knowledgeable experts on hand to answer questions of taxpayers.

DOR wants people to understand that if they believe their property valuation is incorrect or if they want to file a protest, they must do so within 30 days of receiving their Real Estate Assessment Notices. Waiting until the tax bill comes is too late.

 “It’s important that Montana property owners review this information,” said Brendan Beatty, Director of the Montana DOR. “If property owners wait until property tax bills are sent in November, it will be too late for the department to correct property characteristics and make adjustments that may impact the value of the property for Tax Year 2023.

Recipients are urged to review the notice as soon as possible and contact the DOR, if they have questions. If property owners disagree with the department’s determination of value for their property, they may submit a Request for Informal Classification and Appraisal Review (called Form AB-26) within 30 days of the date on their notice.

Owners can electronically submit the form, download it, and find more information on the informal review process at MTRevenue.gov. In July, public meetings in cities and towns across the state will be held to help taxpayers understand the property valuation process and how the department determined the new values on their appraisal notices.

By Tu-Uyen Tran,Federal Reserve Bank of Minnesota

This year’s construction season is expected to be leaner for a significant number of construction firms in the Ninth District compared with last year’s, according to a recent Minneapolis Fed survey.

About half of homebuilders and a third of firms in other sectors of the industry said they think profits over the next six months will be lower than in the same period a year ago

“Interest rates have taken a large portion of our buyers out of the market,” said the owner of a Wisconsin home construction firm. “Only higher end cash buyers don’t seem to be fazed.”

Nearly half of construction firms reported fewer new projects out for bid—known in the industry as requests for proposals (RFPs)—in what is normally a very busy season for them. Some respondents said more projects were delayed or canceled than normal.

The CEO of a Twin Cities architecture firm that works primarily in the commercial sector estimated that a third of the firm’s projects have been paused “based on lack of financing and financial stress of owners and developers.” The number of paused projects is still growing, she said.

Despite the gloomy forecast, however, many said they are optimistic about the future as they adapt to new conditions and seek out new markets.

The survey, conducted throughout April, included 254 respondents.

The construction industry has struggled with customer demand in the past year. A growing number of respondents have reported lower gross revenue since April 2022. In November, more than half of respondents reported lower RFP activity from private-sector customers in recent months compared with the same time period in 2021.

The hardest hit sector then was residential construction.

Up to that point, the industry had coped for several years with a tight labor market and supply chain disruptions resulting in higher project costs. 2022 added a new challenge with a sharp increase in interest rates. Benchmark prime loan rates exceeded pre-pandemic levels about midyear and kept rising. That made it harder for customers to afford the higher costs, especially homebuyers.

2023 could be déjà vu all over again for the industry with nearly half of respondents reporting lower RFP activity from private-sector customers in April. Residential construction was again the hardest hit.

“We simply are not getting the same amount of work we did three years ago,” said a Wisconsin homebuilder. “We have to bid more for the same amount of work.”

Outside of the residential sector, would-be customers are also trying to make sense of a changing economy . . . developers are trying to figure out what the market needs…

There’s also uncertainty about the direction the economy is going with so much speculation about a possible downturn and its timing.

All of which seems to have resulted in more hesitation among developers.

“There are projects being bid but not a whole lot of movement on them,” said a respondent from a Greater Minnesota subcontractor in the commercial sector. “Owners seem to want to ‘wait the storm out’ on a lot of projects.”

Projects that do get the greenlight, the respondent said, are mostly from large corporations, such as fast-food chains and big-box retailers.

Respondents are reporting elevated levels of project cancellations and delays. Thirty-nine percent of respondents said they had seen more cancellations recently compared with three months ago; respondents in the industrial and residential sectors were more likely to report cancellations. More than half of respondents said they had seen more delays, again, with higher rates in the industrial and residential sectors. In the past, delays have often been associated with late delivery of construction materials. But responses in the April survey suggest that many customers are changing their minds.

While interest rates are a top concern for many firms, especially those in the residential sector, for the rest of the construction industry, this concern pales in comparison to labor availability and price increases for construction materials and other inputs. These emerged as the top two concerns for the industry as a whole outside of customer demand, according to respondents.

Even in the residential sector, interest rates were less commonly cited compared with input costs.

A Greater Minnesota architect in the residential sector said none of her clients understand how much higher prices are. “Disbelief causes numerous restarts on projects that come in significantly over budget [compared with] when preliminary cost-per-square-foot estimations come in from contractors. We advise but are not always believed.”

She said the average cost of a home has gone up from $350 per square foot to $500 or even $550. “It is shocking to all of us.”

About a third of respondents said they had experienced price increases of 5 percent or more just in the past three months, and another third said their prices increased between 1 and 5 percent.

These rapid price increases have led to changes in how builders do business.

The Greater Minnesota residential architect said she has to constantly request new bids from suppliers to find the best prices because those prices seem to change every week to two weeks. “This is exhausting.”

A Twin Cities subcontractor in the commercial sector said the firm focuses more on projects that can start immediately because material costs in the near future are easier to estimate. For projects that are further out, the subcontractor said, the firm errs on the side of caution and submits bids that assume high increases in material cost even if it means the bids aren’t competitive. “We’re unwilling to hold the bag on far out contracts that include materials. If we’re bidding work that’s out six months, we are severely marking up our bids to reflect past material uncertainties that cost us millions of dollars.”

Hiring remains a challenge for many firms. Of those that have hired or planned to hire, 57 percent described the labor market as very tight with most of the rest saying it was slightly or moderately tight. Only 3 percent said it wasn’t tight.

That’s put more pressure on wages. About a third of firms said they had increased wages by more than 5 percent in the past 12 months. About a fifth said they planned to increase wages by more than 5 percent in the next 12 months.

“It seems most employees are fishing for other jobs to get more money causing us to pay more to keep them,” said a respondent from a Twin Cities subcontractor involved in the residential and commercial sectors. “New applications are asking for $25 to $30 an hour with little experience.”

With higher costs and more competition for fewer projects, some respondents said they’ve had to absorb the higher costs themselves.

“We’ve had to reduce our profits and margins in order to secure jobs,” a Wisconsin homebuilder reported. “This is not a sustainable practice as the cost of doing business keeps increasing and our gross proceeds are decreasing.”

Despite the many challenges respondents reported, a majority of respondents reported a positive to neutral outlook with 48 percent saying they are optimistic about the next six months and 29 percent saying they are neutral.

Even in the residential sector, 41 percent are optimistic and 28 percent neutral.

One reason respondents are more positive than their financial situation might suggest is they’re looking for opportunities in different markets and are feeling good about their chances of success. The owner of a Twin Cities residential subcontracting firm, for example, said that as fewer people look to build new homes, he’s focusing more on remodeling projects, where he believes he’ll have a better chance of winning contracts.

Most firms, including this subcontractor, are still hiring. Nearly two-thirds of respondents said they had hired in the past three months, and three-quarters said they plan to hire in the next six months. Those figures are only slightly lower than a year ago but double what they were two years ago, when the industry was on the upswing and interest rates were much lower.

Visit Montana has developed Montana Dinosaur Trail for visitors and travelers to Montana’s spectacular unspoiled nature, vibrant and charming small towns, breathtaking experiences and relaxing hospitality.

Dinosaurs have been a staple of American culture since the dawn of time, but a lesser-known American staple is Montana’s big imprint on Dinosaur discovery and today, the many ways for visitors to get their hands dirty uncovering a piece of the past for themselves. Plan your ultimate dino vacation on the Montana Dinosaur Trail, an extraordinary journey through time, where visitors witness the wonders of prehistoric life.

Winding its way through the state, the Montana Dinosaur Trail takes travelers back in time with 14 locations to learn about Montana’s prehistoric residents. While the trail starts along Montana’s Rocky Mountain Front and ends in Southeast Montana, dinosaur enthusiasts can explore the sites in any preferred order. As a bonus, many of the stops on the trail are home to fossils and artifacts that were unearthed locally, in Montana. The trail’s Prehistoric Passport makes it easy to visit them all—just like the dinosaurs did.

A day at the Museum of the Rockies in Bozeman is a must during a Montana adventure. It’s one of the world’s finest research and history museums, as well as a Smithsonian affiliate. Ideal for multi-generational visitors, the museum is home to an impressive fossil collection, permanent exhibits and planetarium shows, as well as a chance to view two of Big Sky Country’s most famous dinosaurs: Big Mike the T. rex and Big Al, a nearly complete Allosaurus.

Big Mike is one of the most complete T. rex skeletons in the world. While the original bones are on loan to the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History, a 15-foot bronze cast stands watch over the museum, greeting you upon arrival. A local family discovered the fossil in eastern Montana in 1988, catching the attention of a Hollywood film team who used the excavation to help produce Jurassic Park.

A four-hour drive north from Bozeman, through limestone bluffs carved by the Missouri River and sweeping valleys of farmland, leads to an area known as the Rocky Mountain Front. Nestled here in the shadow of towering mountain peaks are the small communities of Bynum and Choteau, both of which are prime destinations on the Montana Dinosaur Trail.

With a population of 31, Bynum is a small town—even by Montana standards—with a big dinosaur scene. The Montana Dinosaur Center is home to impressive fossils, including remains of a recently discovered dinosaur species, but what truly sets this museum apart is its dig program. Varying from half-day to five-day dig programs, attendees work alongside paleontologists to unearth a piece of Montana’s rich dinosaur history for themselves. This unique program runs from May through September. Booking for a summer dig is available online here.

This area is also home to Egg Mountain, which became an important site in Montana’s dinosaur history after a Bynum local, Marion Brandvold, found the remains of juvenile dinosaurs. After showing her discovery to Jack Horner, a well-known paleontologist, Horner and his team unearthed 14 dinosaur nests. The original dinosaur fossils found by Brandvold can be seen on display at the Old Trail Museum in Choteau.

Continue along the trail through central Montana for more locally discovered prehistoric treasures. The Upper Musselshell Museum in Harlowton features “Ava,” an Avaceratops skeleton that was the first of its kind, as well as American Indian artifacts from ancient bison kill sites. The Depot Museum in Rudyard is home to the “Oldest Sorehead,” a fully jointed fossil of a Gryposaurus found nearby. Chinook’s Blaine County Museum houses numerous prehistoric discoveries unearthed in the Judith River Formation, a fossil hotbed deposited in this region 75 to 80 million years ago.

Following the Montana Dinosaur Trail east, adventurers will find five additional locations among the sweeping plains, river coulees and badland formations.

The Fort Peck Interpretive Center and Museum features a full-size cast of a Tyrannosaurus rex fossil named Peck’s Rex™ that was unearthed near Fort Peck Lake in 1997. It is one of the most complete fossils discovered in the world.

One of the most compelling communities on the Montana Dinosaur Trail is Glendive, with stops at Frontier Gateway Museum and Makoshika State Park. Today, Montana’s largest state park is home to hiking trails, stunning badland views and a chance to see fossilized remains of several prehistoric species, including Tyrannosaurus rex and Triceratops.

There’s also plenty of exciting events for all ages along the Montana Dinosaur Trail, including the 11th Annual Dino Shindig this summer at the Carter County Museum in Ekalaka. This family-friendly event attracts attendees from all over the world for fun activities and hands-on fossil digs.

Find more dinosaur adventures and ways to explore Montana’s history at visitmt.com.