Senate Bill No. 600
(By Senators McCabe, Foster, Bailey, Jenkins, Sharpe,
Hunter and Barnes)
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[Introduced February 16, 2006; referred to the Committee
on the Judiciary; and then to the Committee on Finance.]
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A BILL to amend the Code of West Virginia, 1931, as amended, by
adding thereto a new section, designated §11-15-4c; and to
amend and reenact §11-22-2 of said code, all relating to the
West Virginia Affordable Housing Trust Fund generally;
imposing a fee of twenty dollars on the transfer of real
property in addition to the excise tax imposed on property
transfers; imposing a fee of twenty dollars in addition to the
consumers sales and service tax on the sale of factory-built
homes; directing the revenue from the additional fees to the
West Virginia Affordable Housing Trust Fund; and authorizing
expenditures for administrative and operating expenses.
Be it enacted by the Legislature of West Virginia:
That the Code of West Virginia, 1931, as amended, be amended
by adding thereto a new section, designated §11-15-4c; and that §11-
22-2 of said code be amended and reenacted, all to read as follows:
ARTICLE 15. CONSUMERS SALES AND SERVICE TAX.
§11-15-4c. Collection of fee
in addition to the consumer sales tax
for sales of mobile factory-built homes; deposit of
additional fee in West Virginia Affordable Housing
Trust Fund.
(a) Beginning the first day of July, two thousand six, there
is imposed, in addition to the sales tax imposed by the provisions
of this article and article fifteen-b of this chapter, a fee of
twenty dollars on all sales of factory-built homes as that term is
defined in section two, article fifteen, chapter thirty-seven of
this code to be collected as provided in article fifteen-b of this
chapter and remitted to the Tax Commissioner to be deposited by the
commissioner in the West Virginia Affordable Housing Trust Fund, as
provided in article eighteen-d, chapter thirty-one of this code.
(b) The monies collected from this fee shall be segregated from
other funds in the West Virginia Affordable Housing Trust Fund and
shall be accounted for separately. Not more than ten percent of
these additional moneys may be exempted from the West Virginia
Affordable Housing Trust Fund to defray administrative and operating
costs and expenses actually incurred by the West Virginia Affordable
Housing Trust Fund.
ARTICLE 22. EXCISE TAX ON PRIVILEGE OF TRANSFERRING REAL PROPERTY.
§11-22-2. Rate of tax; when and by whom payable; additional
county tax.
(a) Every person who delivers, accepts or presents for
recording any document, or in whose behalf any document is
delivered, accepted or presented for recording, shall be subject to
pay for and in respect to the transaction or any part thereof, a
state excise tax upon the privilege of transferring title to real
estate at the rate of one dollar and ten cents for each five hundred
dollars' value or fraction thereof as represented by such the
document as defined in section one hereof, which of this article.
The state tax shall be is payable at the time of delivery,
acceptance or presenting for recording of such the document. In
addition to the state excise tax described in this subsection, there
is assessed a fee of twenty dollars upon the privilege of
transferring real estate. The clerk of the county commission shall
collect the twenty-dollar fee before recording a transfer of title
to real estate and shall deposit the monies from the additional fees
into the West Virginia Affordable Housing Trust Fund as provided in
article eighteen-d, chapter thirty-one of this code. The monies
collected from the additional fee shall be segregated from other
funds in the West Virginia Affordable Housing Trust Fund and shall
be accounted for separately. Not more than ten percent of these
additional monies may be expended by the West Virginia Affordable
Housing Trust Fund to defray administrative and operating costs and
expenses actually incurred by the West Virginia Affordable Housing
Trust Fund. When there is not going to be a transfer of real estate, the fee shall be collected at closing by the seller and
remitted to the clerk of the county commission for deposit into the
West Virginia Affordable Housing Trust Fund.
(b) Effective the first day of January, first, one thousand
nine hundred sixty-eight and thereafter, there is hereby imposed an
additional county excise tax for the privilege of transferring title
to real estate at the rate of fifty-five cents for each five hundred
dollars' value or fraction thereof as represented by such document
as defined in section one hereof of this article, which county tax
shall be payable at the time of delivery, acceptance or presenting
for recording of such document: Provided, That after the first day
of July, one thousand nine hundred eighty-nine, the county may
increase said excise tax to an amount equal to the state excise tax.
The additional tax hereby imposed is declared to be a county tax and
to be used for county purposes: Provided, however, That only one
such state tax and one such county tax shall be paid on any one
document and shall be collected in the county where the document is
first admitted to record, and the same tax shall be paid by the
grantor therein unless the grantee accepts the same document without
such tax having been paid, in which event such tax shall be paid by
the grantee: Provided further, That on any transfer of real
property from a trustee or a county clerk transferring real estate
sold for taxes, such tax shall be paid by the grantee.
The county excise tax imposed under this section may not be increased in any county unless the increase is approved by a
majority vote of the members of the county commission of such
county. Any county commission intending to increase the excise tax
imposed in its county shall publish a notice of its intention to
increase such tax not less than thirty days nor more than sixty days
prior to the meeting at which such increase will be considered, such
notice to be published as a Class I legal advertisement in
compliance with the provisions of article three, chapter fifty-nine
of this code, and the publication area shall be the county in which
such county commission is located.
NOTE: The purpose of this bill is to provide funding for the
West Virginia Affordable Housing Trust Fund by imposing a transfer
fee of twenty dollars on transfer of all real property and factory-
built homes and dedicating such transfer fees to the trust fund.
§11-15-4c is new; therefore, strike-throughs and underscoring
have been omitted.
Strike-throughs indicate language that would be stricken from
the present law, and underscoring indicates new language that would
be added.