Remove Montana property tax rebate from non-refundable credit list by DTrim99 · Pull Request #9348 · PolicyEngine/policyengine-us

DTrim99 · 2026-08-26T13:40:41Z

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 (the 2022-01-01 entry), so mt_income_tax_before_refundable_credits_joint subtracted it. Two compounding defects:

Misclassification — a standalone direct-payment rebate booked as a Form 2 line-19 credit.
Household multiplication — mt_non_refundable_credits is a Person variable that adds the list; mt_property_tax_rebate is 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_rebate 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. (The 2024-01-01: [] entry already drops it thereafter; mt_income_tax_rebate in the 2021 entry is untouched, as the emulator's srebate mechanism 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_credits goes from [675, 675, 675] → [0, 0, 0] and mt_income_tax from 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.

🤖 Generated with Claude Code

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

PavelMakarchuk

PR 9348 — Consolidated review report

"Remove Montana property tax rebate from non-refundable credit list" — DTrim99 (fixes #9347; found via TAXSIM discrepancies policyengine-taxsim#1150/#1152)

Source Documents

Reviewed head SHA: 3066fdce840330ef55ddab14dab4e30046e9fd4f
Mode: full (delegate roles: regulatory [with pdf-collector/audit folded in], references, code-pattern, tests, verification-planner)
Snapshot: /tmp/policyengine-command-runs/2b3d452ec8fd/pr9348-pr-snapshot
Role reports: pr9348-review-context.md, pr9348-review-regulatory.md, pr9348-review-references.md, pr9348-review-code.md, pr9348-review-tests.md, pr9348-review-verification-queue.md (all under RUN_ROOT)
Archived primary sources (Wayback, byte-identical to originals): pr9348-mt-form2-2022-instructions.pdf (1,403,508 B), pr9348-mt-form2-2023-instructions.pdf (1,412,574 B)

Branch Status

BEHIND=0, AHEAD=2 — current with main, no rebase needed.
CI: all 31 checks pass.
Diff (63 lines, 3 files): policyengine_us/parameters/gov/states/mt/tax/income/credits/non_refundable.yaml (removes mt_property_tax_rebate from the 2022-01-01 list), policyengine_us/tests/policy/baseline/gov/states/mt/tax/income/integration.yaml (1 new case), changelog.d/mt-property-tax-rebate.fixed.md.

Verified substance (why the removal is correct)

The core claim is source-confirmed against both years' primary documents:

Not a Form 2 credit. The 2023 MT Form 2 Instructions (archived copy, PDF p.5) describe the Property Tax Rebate (HB 222/HB 816, TY2022–2023, lesser of property tax paid or $675) as claimed separately via the TransAction Portal or Form MPTR23 in fixed claim windows, and state the rebate "is exempt from Montana income tax" — it sits entirely outside the income tax calculation. The complete Nonrefundable Credits Schedules for both TY2022 (PDF p.16, pp.43–44) and TY2023 (PDF p.18, pp.46–49) were enumerated line by line: the Property Tax Rebate appears in neither. The 2022 instructions (published Dec 2022, pre-HB 222) never mention it at all.
Tripling mechanism confirmed in code. mt_non_refundable_credits is a Person-entity variable with a parameter adds list; mt_property_tax_rebate is TaxUnit-entity. policyengine-core projects the tax-unit value onto every member in a Person-level adds, so a 3-member household carried 3 × $675 = $2,025 of phantom credit (verified in core map_to/project semantics).
Arithmetic re-derived exactly. Issue-9347 household (MT joint, 2023): tax before non-refundable credits $5,708.16; pre-fix $3,683.16 = 5,708.16 − 2,025; post-fix $5,708.16, matching the PR body's TaxAct verification. Both new test assertions (mt_property_tax_rebate: 675, mt_non_refundable_credits: [0, 0, 0]) were independently hand re-derived, and the case is confirmed discriminating (pre-PR code yields [675, 675, 675]).
No collateral damage. mt_property_tax_rebate is not orphaned (still consumed via gov.states.household.state_property_tax_credits → taxsim_state_property_tax_credit, plus its own unit test). The remaining list entries — mt_capital_gain_credit (2021/2022) and mt_income_tax_rebate (2021) — are both Person-entity, so no analogous projection defect remains in this list.

Critical

None in this PR's diff. The one-line parameter change is source-confirmed correct for both affected years, the regression test is sound and discriminating, and CI is green.

Disposition note on the references role's C1 (dead 2022 href): the mtrevenue.gov links were dead before this PR (MT DOR site migration; this PR adds no hrefs), the cited content was successfully retrieved and corroborated from archived and live-mirror copies, and verified replacement URLs exist. Per the pre-existing-issue discipline it does not block; it is carried as A1 below because the file is being edited anyway.

Pre-existing findings (outside this diff — follow-up issue material)

The code role's repo-wide entity-projection sweep (6,040 variables AST-parsed; 817 adds lists resolved) found 8 live instances of the same bug class this PR fixes — a Person-entity adds list containing a group-entity variable whose projected value is then summed or subtracted per person. All 8 pre-date this PR, none is touched by its diff, and per canonical rules none blocks it. Recommend opening a tracking issue (one umbrella or eight singles) citing verified core semantics: group→person adds projects the FULL group value onto each member.

#	Person-entity variable (file)	Offending group-entity entry	Consumer / mechanism
P1	`policyengine_us/variables/gov/states/mt/tax/income/deductions/itemized/general/mt_misc_deductions.py`	`casualty_loss_deduction` [TaxUnit]	`mt_itemized_deductions_joint.py:24` sums per member (× household size); `mt_itemized_deductions_indiv.py:29` doubles on separate-on-same-return. Same MT subsystem as this PR.
P2	`policyengine_us/variables/gov/local/ca/la/general_relief/la_general_relief_gross_income.py`	`tanf` [SPMUnit]	`la_general_relief_net_income.py:16` — TANF counted once per member; exact analogue of #9347
P3	`policyengine_us/variables/gov/states/ms/tax/income/ms_agi_adjustments.py`	`self_employed_health_insurance_ald`, `health_savings_account_ald`, `self_employed_pension_contribution_ald` [TaxUnit]	`ms_agi.py:20` subtracts full unit ALD from each non-dependent → double-counted for couples
P4	`policyengine_us/variables/gov/states/oh/tax/income/deductions/medical_exepenses/oh_unreimbursed_medical_care_expense_deduction_person.py`	`oh_insured_unreimbursed_medical_care_expenses` [TaxUnit]	`oh_unreimbursed_medical_care_expense_deduction.py` sums members → × member count
P5	`policyengine_us/variables/gov/states/wv/tax/income/subtractions/senior_citizen_disability/wv_senior_citizen_disability_deduction_total_modifications.py`	`us_govt_interest` [TaxUnit]	`wv_senior_citizen_disability_deduction_person.py:22` — deduction understated for couples
P6	`policyengine_us/variables/gov/local/ca/riv/general_relief/income/earned/ca_riv_general_relief_earned_income_deductions.py`	`state_withheld_income_tax`, `additional_medicare_tax` [TaxUnit]	`ca_riv_general_relief_net_earned_income.py` — deductions double-counted per earner
P7	`policyengine_us/variables/gov/local/ca/riv/general_relief/property/ca_riv_general_relief_countable_property_value.py`	`spm_unit_cash_assets`, `ca_riv_general_relief_countable_vehicle_value` [SPMUnit]	`ca_riv_general_relief_property_eligible.py:14` auto-sums members → assets × member count → wrongly fails eligibility
P8	`policyengine_us/variables/gov/states/il/dhs/aabd/income/expense/il_aabd_expense_exemption_person.py`	`state_withheld_income_tax` [TaxUnit]	`il_aabd_earned_income_after_exemption_person.py:17` — exemption double-counted for couples

Additional pre-existing follow-ups (should-address grade, outside this diff):

P9 — Rebate now reaches household net income through no channel at all (TY2022–2023). After this PR, mt_property_tax_rebate's only consumer is the TAXSIM reporting aggregate, which feeds nothing in household_net_income. Per the 2023 instructions p.5 the rebate is real money (direct payment, up to $675/yr, income-tax-exempt); faithful modeling is a benefit-side transfer for those historical years. Removing the wrong channel first is correct — track the missing right channel as a follow-up.
P10 — 2024+ leakage into the TAXSIM aggregate. parameters/gov/states/mt/tax/income/credits/rebate/property/amount.yaml:3-4 has no sunset (comment says "only offered in the 2022 and 2023 tax years"), and parameters/gov/states/household/state_property_tax_credits.yaml still lists mt_property_tax_rebate at 2024/2025/2026 (lines 131, 156, 186) — a phantom $675 MT "property tax credit" in years the program no longer exists. Companion fix: add 2024-01-01: 0 and drop the 2024+ aggregate entries.
P11 — 2021 mt_income_tax_rebate likely carries the same misclassification (the 2023 instructions describe the HB 192 income tax rebate as "automatically issued", i.e. another standalone rebate; the 2021 Line-19 list does not name it). This is open PR #8970's territory — flag there rather than expanding this PR.

Should Address

(Actionable within this PR; none blocking.)

A1 — Refresh the dead mtrevenue.gov hrefs while the file is open (from references C1+S1). 4 of 5 cited hrefs 301→404 after the MT DOR site migration, including the one backing the edited 2022 entry. Verified working replacements at revenuefiles.mt.gov are supplied in pr9348-review-references.md (C1/S1 tables), with page anchors re-verified — note the 2022 anchor corrects #page=17 → #page=16 ("Line 19–Nonrefundable Credits" is on file p.16). While there: the 2025 reference title should name its section ("Schedule III – Tax Credits, Part I – Nonrefundable Credits") and line 10/13 trailing whitespace can be dropped.
A2 — Cite the removal itself in non_refundable.yaml (references S2). The "not a Form 2 credit" rationale lives only in the PR body and a test comment. Add the verified 2023 What's New citation (.../2023_Montana_Individual_Income_Tax_Return_Form_2_Instructions.pdf#page=5, "claimed via TransAction Portal or Form MPTR23... exempt from Montana income tax"). Do not add an MCA statute cite without verifying the section number (candidate 15-1-2302 unverified).
A3 — TY2022 is the untested half of the change (tests SA-1). The removed entry governed TY2022 and TY2023; only 2023 is tested. Add a period: 2022 sibling case asserting mt_property_tax_rebate: 675 and mt_non_refundable_credits: [0, 0, 0].
A4 — No end-to-end mt_income_tax assertion (tests SA-2, code SA-1, regulatory suggestion). The headline TaxAct-verified figure (3,683.16 → 5,708.16) is untested; a regression re-booking the rebate downstream of mt_non_refundable_credits would pass the new case. Add mt_income_tax: 5_708.16 to the issue-9347 case (run the model to confirm reproduction; the neighboring issue-9012 case already follows this pattern).
A5 — Nothing pins that the rebate was rerouted, not dropped (tests SA-3). Add an aggregate test (pattern exists at tests/.../gov/states/household/state_property_tax_credits/*_in_aggregate.yaml for vt/pa/nd/in): MT household, 2023, assert taxsim_state_property_tax_credit: 675.

Suggestions

S1 — New case uses state_fips: 30 while every other case in integration.yaml uses state_code: MT (lines 541, 563); the spm_units block is unnecessary for the asserted outputs. Cosmetic consistency.
S2 — No case covers the 2024-01-01 [] band of the non-refundable list (e.g. 2024 MT filer with capital gains → mt_non_refundable_credits: 0). Cheap guard on the third date band.
S3 — Pre-existing nits in tests/.../credits/rebate/mt_property_tax_rebate.yaml (untouched here): second case ("676 → 675") is mislabeled "Property tax less than rebate amount"; the exact boundary (675 → 675) is untested.
S4 — Pre-existing: mt_property_tax_rebate.py:13-19 models none of the statutory conditions (principal residence, 7-month ownership and occupancy, taxes billed and paid, claim filing) — worth a comment or follow-up if the rebate gains a benefit-side channel (P9).
S5 — Pre-existing: ma_mbta_enrolled_in_applicable_programs.py and tx_dart_reduced_fare_program_eligible.py use the Person-adds-group projection intentionally (boolean membership checks, never summed) — semantically correct today but fragile; a clarifying comment would inoculate them against the P1–P8 cleanup.

PDF Audit Summary

Scope adaptation: pdf-collector and pdf-audit were folded into the regulatory role.
2 archived MT DOR Form 2 instruction PDFs (TY2022, TY2023) fetched from the Wayback Machine (captures 2025-04-14 / 2025-05-15, byte-identical to the originals), saved under RUN_ROOT, and quoted verbatim with #page= cites; the 2025 instructions verified at the live revenuefiles.mt.gov host.
Key audited facts: $675 lesser-of cap, TY2022/TY2023 only, separate claim (TAP/Form MPTR23), income-tax-exempt, and absence from both years' Nonrefundable Credits Schedules — all corroborated (5/5 references corroborate on content; 4/5 hrefs dead → A1).
The diff adds no #page= references (removal-only parameter edit + test + changelog), so the 5E page-anchor check is N/A; existing anchors were re-verified by the references role (one correction: 2022 → #page=16).

Validation Summary

Role	Result
Regulatory (incl. PDF collect/audit)	0 CRITICAL — removal source-confirmed in both years' primary documents; tripling mechanism and 3,683.16 → 5,708.16 re-derived exactly
References	1 CRITICAL reported (dead 2022 href) — judged pre-existing link rot, content corroborated via archives; carried as A1 with verified replacement URLs
Code patterns	0 CRITICAL in the diff; 8 pre-existing sweep criticals (P1–P8); 9/10 pattern categories clean, 1 N/A
Tests	0 CRITICAL — both asserted values hand re-derived; case confirmed discriminating (pre-PR → `[675, 675, 675]`)
Verification queue	NONE — all cross-role questions settled in-queue; no EXT verification needed
Adjacency	Open PR #8970 touches the same MT credit wiring (2021 income tax rebate) — different rebate, no file overlap, no semantic conflict; can merge in either order. P11 flagged to it.

Review Severity

APPROVE (posting mode: approve-or-request-changes per user instruction).
Judged on THIS diff: zero critical findings; the change is minimal, source-confirmed against primary documents for both affected years, regression-tested with a discriminating case, and CI-green. The 8 sweep criticals are pre-existing and outside the diff — follow-up issue material, not blockers. The should-address items (A1–A5) are non-blocking hardening that would fit naturally in this PR or an immediate follow-up.

Next Steps

Merge-ready as-is; ideally fold in A1–A5 first (A1/A2 are copy-paste edits from the references report; A3–A5 are three small test cases).
Open a tracking issue for the entity-projection bug class (P1–P8, file:line list above) — prioritize P1 (mt_misc_deductions, same MT subsystem) while the team is in this code.
Open follow-ups for P9 (benefit-side channel for the TY2022–2023 rebate) and P10 (2024+ sunset + aggregate leakage).
Flag P11 (2021 income tax rebate misclassification) on PR #8970 rather than expanding this PR.

Applies the Should-Address and Suggestion items from PavelMakarchuk's 2026-08-27 review. No substantive change to the removal; no parameter value changed. - A1: refresh dead mtrevenue.gov reference hrefs to live revenuefiles.mt.gov URLs (all verified HTTP 200), correct the 2022 anchor #page=17 -> #page=16, name the 2025 reference section, drop trailing whitespace. - A2: cite the removal itself with the 2023 Form 2 What's New (p.5): the property tax rebate is claimed via TAP/Form MPTR23 and is income-tax-exempt, not a Form 2 nonrefundable credit. - A3: add a period 2022 sibling case (the removed entry governed TY2022 too). - A4: assert mt_income_tax 5,708.16 on the issue-9347 case (TaxAct-verified). - A5: add an aggregate test pinning the rebate is rerouted to taxsim_state_property_tax_credit (675), not dropped. - S1: use state_code MT and drop the unneeded spm_units block on the new case. - S2: add a 2024 case covering the empty non-refundable list band. - S3: relabel the mislabeled 676->675 rebate case and add the 675->675 boundary. - S4: note the unmodeled statutory eligibility conditions on the rebate variable. Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 <noreply@anthropic.com> Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01YCwrSsGY7vPCpKYGfV1xRr

DTrim99 · 2026-08-28T13:51:53Z

Review addressed — thanks @PavelMakarchuk

Applied all Should-Address (A1–A5) and Suggestion (S1–S4) items. No change to the substantive removal; no parameter value changed.

Should Address

A1 — refreshed the dead mtrevenue.gov reference hrefs to live revenuefiles.mt.gov URLs (each verified HTTP 200), corrected the 2022 anchor #page=17 → #page=16, named the 2025 reference section ("Schedule III – Tax Credits, Part I – Nonrefundable Credits"), and dropped the trailing whitespace.
A2 — cited the removal itself with the 2023 Form 2 "What's New" (p.5): the property tax rebate is claimed via the TransAction Portal / Form MPTR23 and is exempt from Montana income tax — not a Form 2 nonrefundable credit. (No MCA statute cite added, per your note.)
A3 — added a period: 2022 sibling case (the removed entry governed TY2022 as well as TY2023) asserting mt_property_tax_rebate: 675, mt_non_refundable_credits: [0, 0, 0].
A4 — added mt_income_tax: 5_708.16 to the issue-9347 case (the TaxAct-verified headline figure).
A5 — added an aggregate test (mt_property_tax_rebate_in_aggregate.yaml) pinning that the rebate is rerouted to taxsim_state_property_tax_credit (675), not dropped.

Suggestions

S1 — the new case now uses state_code: MT and drops the unnecessary spm_units block.
S2 — added a period: 2024 case covering the empty ([]) non-refundable list band.
S3 — relabeled the mislabeled "676 → 675" rebate case and added the exact 675 → 675 boundary.
S4 — noted the unmodeled statutory eligibility conditions (principal residence, 7-month ownership/occupancy, taxes billed & paid, claim filing) on the rebate variable.
S5 skipped — the clarifying comments on the unrelated ma_mbta_*/tx_dart_* files belong with the P1–P8 entity-projection cleanup, not this diff.

On the pre-existing findings (P1–P11): they're outside this diff, but the 8-instance Person-adds-group projection sweep (P1–P8) is worth a tracking issue — happy to open one (umbrella or per-instance), and to file P9/P10 (MT rebate benefit-side channel + 2024+ aggregate sunset). Just say the word.

I couldn't run the suite locally (broken 3.14-alpha venv), so the 5_708.16 and aggregate 675 values rely on CI to confirm.

Fixed with Claude Code assistance.

codecov · 2026-08-28T14:05:32Z

Codecov Report

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DTrim99 mentioned this pull request Aug 26, 2026

Scope the Montana 2021 income tax rebate to its eligibility year #8970

Open

Use changelog.d fragment instead of changelog_entry.yaml

3066fdc

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 <noreply@anthropic.com> Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_018ECQhxDkVchXm1RNVyqwnx

DTrim99 requested a review from PavelMakarchuk August 26, 2026 18:21

PavelMakarchuk approved these changes Aug 27, 2026

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Remove Montana property tax rebate from non-refundable credit list - #9348

Remove Montana property tax rebate from non-refundable credit list#9348
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PR 9348 — Consolidated review report

Source Documents

Branch Status

Verified substance (why the removal is correct)

Critical

Pre-existing findings (outside this diff — follow-up issue material)

Should Address

Suggestions

PDF Audit Summary

Validation Summary

Review Severity

Next Steps

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DTrim99 commented Aug 28, 2026

Review addressed — thanks @PavelMakarchuk

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