Chapter
402
2003 -- S 0226 AS AMENDED
Enacted 08/06/03
A N A C T
RELATING TO TAXATION --
PROPERTY SUBJECT TO TAXATION
Introduced By: Senator
Kevin A. Breene
Date
Introduced: February 04, 2003
It is enacted by the General
Assembly as follows:
SECTION
1. Section 44-3-3 of the General Laws in Chapter 44-3 entitled "Property
Subject to Taxation" is
hereby amended to read as follows:
44-3-3.
Property exempt. -- The following property is exempt from taxation:
(1)
Property belonging to the state except as provided in section 44-4-4.1;
(2)
Lands ceded or belonging to the United States;
(3)
Bonds and other securities issued and exempted from taxation by the government
of
the United States, or of this
state;
(4)
Real estate, used exclusively for military purposes, owned by chartered or
incorporated organizations approved
by the adjutant general, and composed of members of the
national guard, the naval militia,
or the independent chartered military organizations;
(5)
Buildings for free public schools, buildings for religious worship, and the
land upon
which they stand and immediately
surrounding them, to an extent not exceeding five (5) acres so
far as the buildings and land are
occupied and used exclusively for religious or educational
purposes;
(6)
Dwellings houses and the land on which they stand, not exceeding one acre in
size,
or the minimum lot size for zone in
which the dwelling house is located, whichever is the greater,
owned by or held in trust for any
religious organization and actually used by its officiating clergy,
to an amount not exceeding one
hundred fifty thousand dollars ($150,000) for each house and
land owned and used except in Bristol
where the property previously described in this subdivision
is exempt to an amount not
exceeding five hundred thousand dollars ($500,000) provided also,
dwelling houses and the land on
which they stand in Bristol, not exceeding one acre in size, or the
minimum lot size for zone in which
the dwelling house is located, whichever is the greater,
owned by or held in trust for any
religious organization and actually used as a convent or nunnery
by its religious order, to an
amount not exceeding five hundred thousand dollars ($500,000) for
each house and land owned and used;
(7)
Intangible personal property owned by, or held in trust for, any religious or
charitable
organization, if the principal or
income is used or appropriated for religious or charitable
purposes;
(8)
Buildings and personal estate owned by any corporation used for a school,
academy,
or seminary of learning, and of any
incorporated public charitable institution, and the land upon
which the buildings stand and
immediately surrounding them to an extent not exceeding one acre,
so far as they are used exclusively
for educational purposes, but no property or estate whatever is
hereafter exempt from taxation in
any case where any part of its income or profits or of the
business carried on there is
divided among its owners or stockholders;
(9)
Estates, persons, and families of the president and professors for the time
being of
Brown University for not more than
ten thousand dollars ($10,000) for each officer, the officer's
estate, person, and family
included, but only to the extent that any person had claimed and
utilized the exemption prior to,
and for a period ending either on or after December 31, 1996;
(10)
Property especially exempt by charter unless the exemption has been waived in
whole or in part;
(11)
Lots of land used exclusively for burial grounds;
(12)
Property, real and personal, held for or by an incorporated library, society,
or any
free public library, or any free
public library society, so far as the property is held exclusively for
library purposes, or for the aid or
support of the aged poor, or poor friendless children, or the poor
generally, or for a hospital for
the sick or disabled;
(13)
Real or personal estate belonging to or held in trust for the benefit of
incorporated
organizations of veterans of any
war in which the United States has been engaged, the parent
body of which has been incorporated
by act of congress, to the extent of two hundred and fifty
thousand dollars ($250,000) if
actually used and occupied by the association; provided, that the
city council of the city of
Cranston may by ordinance exempt the real or personal estate as
previously described in this
subdivision located within the city of Cranston to the extent of five
hundred thousand dollars
($500,000);
(14)
Property, real and personal, held for or by the fraternal corporation,
association, or
body created to build and maintain
a building or buildings for its meetings or the meetings of the
general assembly of its members, or
subordinate bodies of the fraternity, and for the
accommodation of other fraternal
bodies or associations, the entire net income of which real and
personal property is exclusively
applied or to be used to build, furnish, and maintain an asylum or
asylums, a home or homes, a school
or schools, for the free education or relief of the members of
the fraternity, or the relief,
support, and care of worthy and indigent members of the fraternity,
their wives, widows, or orphans,
and any fund given or held for the purpose of public education,
almshouses, and the land and
buildings used in connection therewith;
(15)
Real estate and personal property of any incorporated volunteer fire engine
company or incorporated
volunteer ambulance/rescue corps in active service;
(16)
The estate of any person who in the judgment of the assessors is unable from
infirmity or poverty to pay the
tax, providing however, that in the town of Burrillville the tax
shall constitute a lien for five
(5) years on the property where the owner is entitled to the
exemption. At the expiration of
five (5) years, the lien shall be abated in full. Provided further, if
the property is sold or conveyed or
if debt secured by the property is refinanced during the five
(5) year period, the lien
immediately becomes due and payable; any person claiming the
exemption aggrieved by an adverse
decision of an assessor shall appeal the decision to the local
board of tax review, and thereafter
according to the provisions of section 44-5-26;
(17)
Household furniture and family stores of a housekeeper in the whole, including
clothing, bedding, and other white
goods, books, and all other tangible personal property items
which are common to the normal
household;
(18)
Improvements made to any real property to provide a shelter and fallout
protection
from nuclear radiation, to the
amount of one thousand five hundred dollars ($1,500); provided,
that the improvements meet
applicable standards for shelter construction established from time to
time by the Rhode Island defense
civil preparedness agency. The improvements are deemed to
comply with the provisions of any
building code or ordinance with respect to the materials or the
methods of construction used and
any shelter or its establishment is deemed to comply with the
provisions of any zoning code or
ordinance;
(19)
Aircraft for which the fee required by section 1-4-6 has been paid to the tax
administrator;
(20)
Manufacturer's inventory.
(i)
For the purposes of sections 44-4-10, 44-5-3, 44-5-20, and 44-5-38, a person is
deemed to be a manufacturer within
a city or town within this state if that person uses any
premises, room, or place in it
primarily for the purpose of transforming raw materials into a
finished product for trade through
any or all of the following operations: adapting, altering,
finishing, making, and ornamenting;
provided, that public utilities, nonregulated power
producers, commencing commercial
operation, selling electricity at retail or taking title to
generating facilities on or after
July 1, 1997, building and construction contractors, warehousing
operations including distribution bases
or outlets of out-of-state manufacturers, fabricating
processes incidental to warehousing
or distribution of raw materials such as alteration of stock for
the convenience of a customer, are
excluded from this definition.
(ii)
For the purposes of sections 44-3-3, 44-4-10, and 44-5-38, the term
"manufacturer's
inventory" or any similar term
means and includes the manufacturer's raw materials, the
manufacturer's work in process, and
finished products manufactured by the manufacturer in this
state, and not sold, leased, or
traded by the manufacturer or its title or right to possession
divested, provided, that the term
does not include any finished products held by the manufacturer
in any retail store or other
similar selling place operated by the manufacturer whether or not the
retail establishment is located in
the same building in which the manufacturer operates the
manufacturing plant.
(iii) For the purpose of section 44-11-2, a manufacturer is a person whose
principal
business in this state consists of
transforming raw materials into a finished product for trade
through any or all of the
operations described in paragraph (i) of this subdivision. A person will
be deemed to be principally engaged
if the gross receipts which that person derived from the
manufacturing operations in this
state during the calendar year or fiscal year mentioned in section
44-11-1 amounted to more than fifty
percent (50%) of the total gross receipts which that person
derived from all the business
activities in which that person engaged in this state during the
taxable year. For the purpose of
computing the percentage, gross receipts derived by a
manufacturer from the sale, lease,
or rental of finished products manufactured by the
manufacturer in this state, even
though the manufacturer's store or other selling place may be at a
different location from the
location of the manufacturer's manufacturing plant in this state, are
deemed to have been derived from
manufacturing.
(iv)
Within the meaning of the preceding paragraphs of this subdivision, the term
"manufacturer" also
includes persons who are principally engaged in any of the general activities
coded and listed as establishments
engaged in manufacturing in the standard industrial
classification manual prepared by
the technical committee on industrial classification, office of
statistical standards, executive
office of the president, United States bureau of the budget, as
revised from time to time, but eliminating
as manufacturers those persons, who, because of their
limited type of manufacturing
activities, are classified in the manual as falling within the trade
rather than an industrial
classification of manufacturers. Among those thus eliminated, and
accordingly also excluded as
manufacturers within the meaning of this paragraph, are persons
primarily engaged in selling, to
the general public, products produced on the premises from which
they are sold, such as neighborhood
bakeries, candy stores, ice cream parlors, shade shops, and
custom tailors, except, however,
that a person who manufactures bakery products for sale
primarily for home delivery, or
through one or more nonbaking retail outlets, and whether or not
retail outlets are operated by
person, is a manufacturer within the meaning of this paragraph.
(v)
The term "person" means and includes, as appropriate, a person,
partnership, or
corporation.
(vi)
The department of administration shall provide to the local assessors any assistance
that is necessary in determining
the proper application of the definitions in this subdivision.
(21)
Real and tangible personal property acquired to provide a treatment facility
used
primarily to control the pollution
or contamination of the waters or the air of the state, as defined
in chapter 12 of title 46 and
chapter 25 of title 23, respectively, the facility having been
constructed, reconstructed,
erected, installed, or acquired in furtherance of federal or state
requirements or standards for the
control of water or air pollution or contamination, and certified
as approved in an order entered by
the director of environmental management. The property is
exempt as long as it is operated
properly in compliance with the order of approval of the director
of environmental management,
provided further, that any grant of the exemption by the director
of environmental management in
excess of ten (10) years is approved by the city or town in
which the property is situated.
This provision applies only to water and air pollution control
properties and facilities installed
for the treatment of waste waters and air contaminants resulting
from industrial processing;
furthermore, it applies only to water or air pollution control properties
and facilities placed in operation
for the first time after April 13, 1970;
(22)
New manufacturing machinery and equipment acquired or used by a manufacturer
and purchased after December 31,
1974. Manufacturing machinery and equipment is defined:
(i)
As that machinery and equipment used exclusively in the actual manufacture or
conversion of raw materials or
goods in the process of manufacture by a manufacturer as defined
in subdivision (20) of this section,
and machinery, fixtures, and equipment used exclusively by a
manufacturer for research and
development or for quality assurance of its manufactured products;
(ii)
As that machinery and equipment which is partially used in the actual manufacture
or
conversion of raw materials or
goods in process of manufacture by a manufacturer as defined in
subdivision (20) of this section,
and machinery, fixtures, and equipment used by a manufacturer
for research and development or for
quality assurance of its manufactured products, to the extent
to which the machinery and
equipment is used for the manufacturing processes, research and
development or quality assurance.
In the instances where machinery and equipment is used in
both manufacturing and/or research,
and development, and/or quality assurance activities and
nonmanufacturing activities, the
assessment on machinery and equipment is prorated by applying
the percentage of usage of the
equipment for the manufacturing, research, and development and
quality assurance activity to the
value of the machinery and equipment for purposes of taxation,
and the portion of the value used
for manufacturing, research, and development, and quality
assurance is exempt from taxation.
The burden of demonstrating this percentage usage of
machinery and equipment for
manufacturing and for research, and development and/or quality
assurance of its manufactured
products rests with the manufacturer; and
(iii) As that machinery and equipment described in section 44-18-30(7) and (22)
that was
purchased after July 1, 1997;
provided that the city or town council of the city or town in which
the machinery and equipment is
located adopts an ordinance exempting the machinery and
equipment from taxation. For
purposes of this subsection, city councils and town councils of any
municipality may by ordinance
wholly or partially exempt from taxation the machinery and
equipment discussed in this
subsection for the period of time established in the ordinance and
may by ordinance establish the
procedures for taxpayers to avail themselves of the benefit of any
exemption permitted under this
section; provided, that the ordinance does not apply to any
machinery or equipment of a
business, subsidiary or any affiliated business which locates or
relocates from a city or town in
this state to another city or town in the state.
(23)
Precious metal bullion, meaning any elementary metal which has been put through
a
process of melting or refining, and
which is in a state or condition that its value depends upon its
content and not its form. The term
does not include fabricated precious metal which has been
processed or manufactured for some
one or more specific and customary industrial, professional,
or artistic uses;
(24)
Hydroelectric power generation equipment, which includes, but is not limited
to,
turbines, generators, switchgear,
controls, monitoring equipment, circuit breakers, transformers,
protective relaying, bus bars,
cables, connections, trash racks, headgates, and conduits. The
hydroelectric power generation
equipment must have been purchased after July 1, 1979, and
acquired or used by a person or
corporation who owns or leases a dam and utilizes the equipment
to generate hydroelectric power;
(25)
Subject to authorization by formal action of the council of any city or town,
any real
or personal property owned by, held
in trust for, or leased to an organization incorporated under
chapter 6 of title 7, as amended,
or an organization meeting the definition of "charitable trust" set
out in section 18-9-4, as amended,
or an organization incorporated under the not for profits
statutes of another state or the
District of Columbia, the purpose of which is the conserving of
open space, as that term is defined
in chapter 36 of title 45, as amended, provided the property is
used exclusively for the purposes
of the organization;
(26)
Tangible personal property, the primary function of which is the recycling,
reuse, or
recovery of materials (other than
precious metals, as defined in section 44-18-30(24)(ii) and (iii)),
from or the treatment of
"hazardous wastes", as defined in section 23-19.1-4, where the
"hazardous wastes" are
generated primarily by the same taxpayer and where the personal property
is located at, in, or adjacent to a
generating facility of the taxpayer. The taxpayer may, but need
not, procure an order from the
director of the department of environmental management
certifying that the tangible
personal property has this function, which order effects a conclusive
presumption that the tangible
personal property qualifies for the exemption under this
subdivision. If any information
relating to secret processes or methods of manufacture,
production, or treatment is
disclosed to the department of environmental management only to
procure an order, and is a
"trade secret" as defined in section 28-21-10(b), it shall not be
open to
public inspection or publicly
disclosed unless disclosure is otherwise required under chapter 21 of
title 28 or chapter 24.4 of title
23;
(27)
Motorboats as defined in section 46-22-2 for which the annual fee required in
section 46-22-4 has been paid;
(28)
Real and personal property of the Providence performing arts center, a
non-business
corporation as of December 31,
1986;
(29)
Tangible personal property owned by, and used exclusively for the purposes of,
any
religious organization located in
the city of Cranston; and
(30)
Real and personal property of the Travelers Aid Society of Rhode Island, a
nonprofit corporation, the Union
Mall Real Estate Corporation, and any limited partnership or
limited liability company which is
formed in connection with, or to facilitate the acquisition of,
the Providence YMCA Building.
SECTION
2. This act shall take effect upon passage.
=======
LC01120
=======