Remove Montana property tax rebate from non-refundable credit list - #9348
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Remove Montana property tax rebate from non-refundable credit list#9348DTrim99 wants to merge 2 commits into
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The Montana Property Tax Rebate (up to $675 for TY2022-2023) is a standalone rebate claimed on a separate application to the Department of Revenue, not a Form 2 nonrefundable income-tax credit. It was listed in gov.states.mt.tax.income.credits.non_refundable, so it reduced Montana income tax; and because the person-level aggregator mt_non_refundable_credits adds the tax-unit-level $675 rebate, PolicyEngine projected it onto every household member (e.g. $675 x 3 = $2,025 for a family of three), understating MT tax. Remove it from the 2022-01-01 credit list, leaving mt_capital_gain_credit. The rebate variable still computes its $675 value; it simply no longer reduces income tax. Restores mt_income_tax to 5,708.16 for the issue household (was 3,683.16), matching the TaxAct return. Fixes PolicyEngine#9347. Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 <noreply@anthropic.com> Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_018ECQhxDkVchXm1RNVyqwnx
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 <noreply@anthropic.com> Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_018ECQhxDkVchXm1RNVyqwnx
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Summary
The Montana Property Tax Rebate (up to $675 for TY2022 and TY2023) is a standalone rebate — homeowners claim it on a separate application to the Department of Revenue (tap.dor.mt.gov, window Aug 15 – Oct 1, 2024 for TY2023). It is not a Form 2 nonrefundable income-tax credit and does not reduce income tax liability.
It was listed in
gov.states.mt.tax.income.credits.non_refundable(the2022-01-01entry), somt_income_tax_before_refundable_credits_jointsubtracted it. Two compounding defects:mt_non_refundable_creditsis a Person variable thataddsthe list;mt_property_tax_rebateis a TaxUnit variable ($675), so PolicyEngine projected it onto every member of the tax unit ($675 × 3 = $2,025 for a family of three).Net effect: Montana income tax understated by $675 per household member.
Change
Remove
mt_property_tax_rebatefrom the2022-01-01credit list, leaving[mt_capital_gain_credit]. The rebate variable still computes its $675 value — it simply no longer reduces income tax. (The2024-01-01: []entry already drops it thereafter;mt_income_tax_rebatein the 2021 entry is untouched, as the emulator'ssrebatemechanism relies on it.)Testing
Verified on the issue household (MT joint 2023, ages 26/25, 1 dependent, $114,039 wages, $204 interest, $2,755 property tax):
mt_non_refundable_creditsgoes from[675, 675, 675]→[0, 0, 0]andmt_income_taxfrom 3,683.16 → 5,708.16, matching the TaxAct Form 2 (line 18 = line 20 = $5,708, credit schedule blank). Added a regression test to the Montana integration suite.Found via PolicyEngine-TAXSIM discrepancy #1152 (and its 2022 counterpart #1150), reported by @feenberg.
Sibling of #8970 (@PavelMakarchuk), which scopes the Montana income tax rebate — same subsystem, different rebate, no file overlap.
Fixes #9347.
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