Edward J. Smith
On April 25 the House of
Representatives approved the FY2020 state budget recommendations of its Ways
and Means Committee,
after a series of amendments that resulted in a total appropriations
authorization of $42.7 billion for the fiscal year beginning July 1, 2019.
Included was a hefty
increase in the appropriation for the Massachusetts Legal Assistance
Corporation. The House increased the
appropriation recommended by Governor Baker from $21 million to $23.6 million.
As is typical in this
process, several finance-related changes in the General Laws were
included. Among them is an expansion of the conservation land tax
credit, which was first authorized to take effect in 2011. According to the
amendment’s lead sponsor, Representative Bradley Jones (R-North Reading), the
tax credit on land donated to the commonwealth has helped protect 12,000 acres.
The amendment would increase the present $2 million cap gradually by $1 million
each year, starting in Jan. 1, 2020, to $5 million. There are said to be a number
of applications pending throughout the commonwealth that would benefit from the
amendment.
The
House-passed budget bill (H. 3800, as amended) would increase the Registry of
Deeds recording fee surcharge that supports the Community Preservation Act
Trust Funds. As conceived when the CPA
was first passed in 2000, any community that approves a special property tax
surcharge dedicated to CPA purposes was to receive matching funds from a Trust
Fund that aggregates the Registry surcharges.
The amount of the registry surcharge has been $20 for most instruments
since the CPA was passed in 2000. Effective
December 31, 2019, the pending legislation would increase that surcharge to $50
per instrument, except for MLC’s, which would increase from $10 to $25. Also approved in the House recommendations for
the FY2020 budget is an extension to 2025 for the funding of registries of
deeds technology efforts from a dedicated $5 special recording fee
surcharge.
The Senate
will take up the budget bill in May.
Other
finance-related bills of interest to conveyancers and their clients are still
in committee. Governor Baker has
proposed S.10, to increase by 50% the amount of the deeds
stamps to fund a Global Warming Solutions Trust Fund to assist communities in
infrastructure resilience projects and risk mitigation. Other bills would authorize local option
adoption of special real property transfer taxes to fund the creation of
affordable housing. (S.773, S.799, H.1769, H.2425, H.2552)
This
REBA Blog posting was authored by Edward J. Smith. Ed Smith has served as
legislative counsel to the Association since 1987. He can be contacted by email at ejs@ejsmithrelaw.com.
