H. B. 3027
(By Delegate Brown (By Request))
[Introduced March 10, 2009; referred to the
Committee on the Judiciary then Finance.]
A BILL to amend and reenact §11-22-1 and §11-22-2 of the Code of
West Virginia, 1931, as amended, all relating to providing for
an excise tax on the recordation of mortgages and deeds of
trust.
Be it enacted by the Legislature of West Virginia:
That §11-22-1 and §11-22-2 of the Code of West Virginia, 1931,
as amended, be amended and reenacted all to read as follows:
ARTICLE 22. EXCISE TAX ON PRIVILEGE OF TRANSFERRING REAL
PROPERTY.
§11-22-1. Definitions.
As used in this chapter:
(1) "Association" means a partnership, limited partnership or
any other form of unincorporated enterprise, owned or conducted by
two or more persons.
(2) "Corporation" means a corporation or joint-stock association, organized under the laws of this state, the United
States or any other state, territory or foreign country or
dependency including, but not limited to, banking institutions.
(3) "Commissioner" means the State Tax Commissioner.
(4) "Document" means any deed, or instrument or writing by
which any real property within this state or any interest in real
property is granted, conveyed or otherwise transferred to the
grantee, purchaser or any other person; but does not include wills,
transfer of real property where the value of the property
transferred is $100 or less, testamentary or inter vivos trusts,
deeds of partition, deeds made pursuant to mergers of corporations,
limited liability companies, partnerships, limited partnerships,
testamentary or inter vivos trusts, deeds made pursuant to
conversions to limited liability companies from corporations,
partnerships, limited partnerships or trusts, deeds made by a
subsidiary corporation to its parent corporation for no
consideration other than the cancellation or surrender of the
subsidiary's stock, leases, transfers between husband and wife,
transfers between parent and child or transfers between parent and
child and his or her spouse, without consideration, transfers
between grandparent and grandchild or transfers between grandparent
and grandchild and his or her spouse, without consideration,
transfers without consideration between a principal and straw party
for any purpose, gifts to or transfers from or between voluntary charitable or educational associations or trustees of voluntary
charitable or educational associations and like nonprofit
corporations having the same or similar purposes, quitclaim or
corrective deeds without consideration, transfers to or from the
United States, the State of West Virginia, or to or from any of
their instrumentalities, agencies or political subdivisions, by
gift, dedication, deed or condemnation proceedings.
or mortgages or
deeds of trust given as security for a debt.
(5) "Limited liability company" means a limited liability
company organized under the laws of this state, the United States
or by any other state, territory or the District of Columbia.
(6) "Person" means every natural person, association or
corporation. Whenever used in any clause prescribing and imposing
a fine or imprisonment, or both, the term "person" as applied to
associations, means the partners or members of the association,
and, as applied to corporations, the officers of the corporation.
(7) "Transaction" means the delivering, accepting or
presenting for recording of a document.
(8) "Value" means in the case of any document not a gift, the
amount of the full actual consideration for the document, paid or
to be paid, including the amount of any lien or liens assumed; in
the case of a gift, or any other document without consideration,
the actual monetary value of the property conveyed or transferred.
In the event any document includes real property or any interest in real property lying outside the State of West Virginia or includes
personal property, value is the proportion of the consideration
paid in case of the transfer for consideration, or the proportion
of the true and actual value in case of a gift, which the actual
value of the real property located in West Virginia bears to the
total actual value of all the property, real or personal,
transferred by the document. The value as defined in this
subdivision shall be stated in the declaration of consideration or
value provided
for in section six of this article.
§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,
other than a
mortgage or deed of trust given as security for a debt, is 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 $500 value
or fraction thereof as represented by the document as defined in
section one of this article. The state tax is payable at the time
of delivery, acceptance or presenting for recording of the
document. In addition to the state excise tax described in this
subsection, there is assessed a fee of $20 upon the privilege of
transferring real estate for consideration. The clerk of the county commission shall collect the additional $20 fee before
recording a transfer of title to real estate and shall deposit the
moneys 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 moneys collected from this 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 moneys
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. The
Housing Development Fund, as fiscal agent of the West Virginia
Affordable Housing Trust Fund, shall publish monthly on the
Internet site an accounting of all revenue deposited into the fund
during the month and a full disclosure of all expenditures from the
fund including the group receiving funds, their location and any
contractor awarded the construction contract. Additionally, the
West Virginia Affordable Housing Trust Fund is to provide an annual
report to the Joint Committee on Government and Finance before
December 1, 2007, and each year thereafter.
(b) Effective January 1, 1968, and thereafter, there is
imposed an additional county excise tax for the privilege of
transferring title to real estate at the rate of $.55 for each $500
value or fraction thereof as represented by such document as defined in section one 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 July 1, 1989, 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 tax shall be paid by
the grantor therein unless the grantee accepts the 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.
(c) Every person who delivers, accepts or presents for
recording any mortgage or deed of trust given as security for a
debt, or in whose behalf any such mortgage or deed of trust
document is delivered, accepted or presented for recording, is
subject to pay for and in respect to the transaction or any part
thereof, a state excise tax upon th privilege at the rate of $.50
for each $500 of debt secured or fraction thereof as represented by
such document as defined in section one hereof, which state tax is
payable at the time of delivery, acceptance or presenting for
recording of such document. All tax collected upon the recordation
of mortgages and deeds of trust shall be returned to the clerks of
the county commission (County Clerk) of each county, administered
through a separate, dedicated account, for the sole and exclusive
purpose of acquiring and implementing the equipment and technology
to accept, maintain and preserve the public records in electronic
and/or digital format, as contemplated and authorized by the
Uniform Electronic Transactions Act, section one, article one,
chapter thirty-nine-a et. seq of this code.
NOTE: The purpose of this bill is to provide funding for the
courts of this state to obtain and implement the technology
required to implement the Uniform Electronic Transaction Act on a
state-wide basis.
Strike-throughs indicate language that would be stricken from
the present law, and underscoring indicates new language that would
be added.