Other LanguagesThe State Department of Licensing is not presently authorized by law to refund either a lawfully paid motor vehicle license fee or the accompanying motor vehicle excise tax payment made by a vehicle owner prior to the beginning of the new registration year for which the payments are made simply because, prior to the beginning of the new registration year, the vehicle is destroyed or is removed from the state and licensed in another jurisdiction.
1. Article 7, section 1, of the Washington Constitution, provides that all taxes on real property be uniform. House Bill 1297 which authorizes payments to certain people, calculated with reference to the taxes levied on their primary residence, does not violate the uniformity requirement. 2. Article 11, section 9, of the Washington Constitution, prohibits releasing or discharging state taxes on a county, its inhabitants or its property. The payment of assistance from funds appropriated for that purpose by the Legislature in House Bill 1297 does not constitute a release or discharge of the state property tax levied for the support of the common schools. 3. Article 8, sections 5 and 7, of the Washington Constitution, prohibit gifts of public funds. The payment of assistance to certain citizens authorized by House Bill 1297 is a gift of public funds because the payments do not carry out a fundamental governmental function and there is no consideration for the payments. 4. Article 8, sections 5 and 7, of the Washington Constitution, do not prohibit gifts of public funds that are necessary for the support of the poor. House Bill 1297 authorized assistance to persons with $30,000 or less of combined disposable income. The question of whether House Bill 1297 constitutes assistance to the poor is, to some degree, a factual question and we cannot say precisely where the court will draw the line between assistance to the poor and an impermissible gift. Some people with incomes of less than $30,000 are, undoubtedly, poor. However, there is substantial doubt whether an individual with an annual income of $30,000 and no dependents is poor. It is unlikely that a court would permit such a person to receive assistance pursuant to House Bill 1297.
The Department of Revenue has statutory authority to require private businesses to provide information to the Department for research purposes, and information provided pursuant to such a requirement will be confidential and not subject to access by the general public, but the precise limits of the Department's authority depend on judicial determination in specific cases.
Where counties, cities, and towns charge fees for short plats in amounts designed to cover the actual cost of administering a regulatory program, such fees are authorized by statute and are not an improper form of taxation. However, where fees for short platting are designed to raise revenue over and above the actual costs of administering the regulatory program, the fees are a form of taxation in excess of the local government's statutory taxing power.
When a school district is dissolved and all of its territory is transferred to another district effective August 31, 2007, and when the transferred territory is made subject to excess levies approved by the receiving district before the transfer, the transferred territory is included within the receiving district’s tax base for the levy made in 2008 to be collected in 2009, but not earlier.
(1) RCW 41.26.040(3) does not prohibit a city or town from using property tax revenues obtained under RCW 41.16.060 for municipal purposes other than the funding of firemen's pensions in those cases where such other uses are permitted by the terms of the latter statute. (2) A municipality which first created a full time, paid fire department after March 1, 1970, the date upon which the LEOFF system became operative, is not authorized to levy the additional property tax provided for in RCW 41.16.060.
RCW 84.52.069(2) authorizes certain taxing districts to levy a regular property tax for emergency medical care and medical services. RCW 84.55.010 establishes the 106 percent limit which is applicable to regular property tax levies. The 106 percent limit applies to the emergency medical care levy after the first year.
(1) The reduction in the interest rate from ten percent to five percent per annum on not more than five hundred dollars of delinquent real property taxes "for a single year," as provided for by § 3, chapter 288, Laws of 1971, 1st Ex. Sess., applies only to the first year of delinquency rather than to each year in which the subject taxes may have been delinquent.(2) The five percent interest rate thus provided for by § 3, chapter 288, Laws of 1971, 1st Ex. Sess., is to be applied against not more than five hundred dollars of the combined total amount of all delinquent taxes which have been imposed for a single year on all real property owned by the same taxpayer in a given county.
(1) A leasehold interest which would have qualified for a property tax exemption under the terms of § 11 (1), chapter 187, Laws of 1973, 1st Ex. Sess., as of January 1, 1973, and which has not been "renegotiated" within the meaning of § 3 (3) at any time in 1973, is exempt from such taxation for that assessment year with respect to property taxes due and payable in 1974; however, this same leasehold interest would not qualify for such an exemption from property taxes due and payable in 1974 if the leasehold had been "renegotiated" between January 1, 1973, and July 16, 1973, the effective date of chapter 187, supra. (2) In the determination of "economic rent" as defined in § 3 (1), chapter 187, supra, a county assessor is not conclusively bound by a determination of "contract rent" made by an impartial arbitration board or, in the case of creation of a new leasehold interest, by open public bidding ‑ although this would be one of the relevant circumstances which the assessor is to consider. (3) Where there is a change in consideration to be paid by the lessee to the lessor but the term of the lease is shortened rather than extended, a "renegotiation" does not occur within the meaning of § 3 (3) of chapter 187, supra. (4) In order for a leasehold interest granted by an Indian to a non-Indian to be exempt from property taxation under § 11 (8), chapter 187, supra, the real property which is subject thereto must be that land of an Indian or Indian tribe that is held in trust by the United States or is subject to a restraint against alienation imposed by the United States.
(1) The residents of the Town of McCleary who are registered voters therein remain entitled (under the facts of this opinion) to participate in the election of Grays Harbor Public Utility District No. 1 commissioners even though the town operates its own electrical system. (2) Property situated within the Town of McCleary may not be taxed to construct, purchase or support the public utility district's electrical system, so long as the town continues to own or operate its own electrical utility.