A title like that would never sell on Amazon. Something a little sexier, like Montana’s New Budget would do a lot better, I think.
| Alas, I’m not in state government, so it is how it is. And that means there’s 58 pages of, oh…I won’t say boring, but I will say semi-boring material. I mean, really – this is the kind of stuff you’d do if you had to at school, or if someone was paying you just enough money to scrape by on. |
It’s a winning combination, and instead of beating around the bush any longer, let’s get going.
Besides the General Fund, we have State Special Revenue, which accounts for the other 37% of the money Montana makes. These two charts give a good look at what we’re talking about:
- Grants & Transfers: $421.9 million
- Licenses & Permits: $186.1 million
- Other Taxes: $148.9 million
- Remaining Sources: $136.5 million
- Gasoline Taxes: $136.5 million
- Oil & Natural Gas Taxes: $124.1 million
- Diesel Taxes: $86.8 million
Add all that together and you get our total State Special Revenue of $1.241 billion.
- Individual Income Tax: $1.059 billion
- Other Taxes: $290.7 million
- Property Tax: $249.2 million
- Corporate Income Tax: $145.3 million
- Oil & Natural Gas Production Tax: $103.8 million
- Vehicle Tax: $103.8 million
- Insurance Tax: $62.3 million
- Video Gambling Tax: $62.3 million
If you add the $2.077 billion of the General Fund together with the $1.241 billion of the State Special Revenue and you get $3.318 billion.
Come back later and we’ll explore how the various taxes of the General Fund are made up. And in the coming days we’ll try to figure out what we’re spending all that money on. And after that we’ll try to figure out how to make it work better. Hope to see you then!