AGO Opinion Topics: TAXATION

1. When county timber excise tax revenues received during the third and fourth quarters of a year are insufficient to fully satisfy the first and second priorities for revenue distribution under RCW 84.33.081(2) and (4), distributions made to lower-priority districts during the first and second quarters of that year may not be taken back and redistributed to first- or second-priority districts.
2. School district property tax rates may not be adjusted during a tax year when timber excise tax revenues fall short of projections used in calculating the tax rate and levying property taxes for the year.

RCW 82.20.010 which imposes a tax upon certain conveyances does not apply to declarations of forfeiture recorded pursuant to chapter 61.30 RCW.

1. A local taxing district other than a school district may use
   timber tax revenues distributed under RCW 84.33.081(2) only to pay debt
   services related to capital bonds authorized under RCW 84.52.056. 
2. RCW 84.33.081(2) does not specify the manner in which a taxing district applies timber tax revenues to the debt service. 
3. In the year in which a taxing district fully pays off its capital
   bonds issued pursuant to RCW 84.52.056, its use of timber tax revenue
   distributed pursuant to RCW 84.33.081(2) is not restricted to any
   particular purpose.

Because of the provisions of Article VIII, §§ 5 and 7 of the Washington constitution, any legislation proposing to exempt designated classes of property from 1975 property tax levies collectible in 1976 must be enacted before any such taxes have been collected.

In computing the combined income of the head of a household and his spouse, for purposes of determining eligibility for the real property tax exemption provided for by chapter 168, Laws of 1965, Ex. Sess., the following, except to the extent that they represent a return of capital or investment, are to be included: Social security benefits; railroad retirement benefits; teachers' retirement allowances; state, municipal and county employee retirement benefits; and private company pensions.

1.  A county may use the local option sales and use tax authorized under RCW 82.14.370 for any of the following purposes if the activity in question relates to a public facility as defined in the statute: capital facilities costs, including acquisition, construction, rehabilitation, alteration, expansion, or improvements of public facilities; costs of development and improvement for the public facilities; project-specific environmental costs; land use and permitting costs; costs of site planning and analysis; project design, including feasibility and marketing studies and plans, and debt and revenue impact analysis.

1.  Article 7 of the Washington State Constitution does not require that property subject to ad valorem property tax be assessed at 100 per cent of true and fair value.    2.  The State Constitution imposes three requirements on the assessment of property subject to ad valorem property tax:  (1) any tax must be uniform, as to any class of property within the territorial limits of the authority levying the tax; (2) the valuation system must be administered in a systematic, non-discriminatory manner; and, (3) the aggregate of all taxes levied upon real and personal property by the state and all taxing districts must not, in any year, exceed one per cent of true and fair value of each property.

The provisions of RCW 84.36.171-84.36.174, relating to the "free port" exemption from property taxation, do not permit the exemption to be obtained through use of a formula whereby the total volume of tax exempt in-transit property would be regarded to be a certain percentage of the taxpayer's total year-end inventory which percentage would be computed by multiplying the percentage of total purchases which were received by the taxpayer from out-of-state sources during the year by the percentage of total sales which were shipped by him to out-of-state purchasers during the same year.

A coliseum owned jointly by a private corporation and a city is neither wholly nor partially exempted from state and local property taxes under article 7, section 1 of the state constitution or RCW 84.36.010.

A transfer of an interest in real property by a parent corporation to a subsidiary corporation, or by a subsidiary corporation to a parent corporation, is not subject to the one percent real estate excise tax under chapter 28A.45 RCW where the transferee corporation does not issue or transfer stock certificates to the transferor corporation in exchange for the interest in real property thus transferred.