Finance, Revenue and Bonding Committee
AN ACT MAKING MINOR AND CONFORMING CHANGES TO CERTAIN TAX STATUTES
SUMMARY: This act aligns the motor vehicle mill rate cap for special taxing districts and boroughs with the existing cap for municipalities. The law bars districts and boroughs from setting a mill rate that, if combined with the municipality's motor vehicle mill rate, would exceed 32 mills for the 2015 assessment year and 29. 36 mills for the 2016 assessment year. The act extends the 29. 36 mill rate cap to the 2017 assessment year and thereafter, thus aligning it with the cap for municipalities for those assessment years (see BACKGROUND).
The act also does the following:
1. revises two statutes to reflect the separate mill rates on motor vehicles and real and personal property other than motor vehicles, beginning in FY 17;
2. corrects statutory references in the payment in lieu of taxes (PILOT) program and Mashantucket Pequot and Mohegan Fund distribution formula statutes;
3. corrects a personal income tax bracket calculation for head of household filers, thus conforming the statutes to existing practice; and
4. makes other technical and conforming changes.
EFFECTIVE DATE: Upon passage, except (1) the PILOT changes are effective July 1, 2016 and (2) some technical changes to the consensus revenue estimate statutes are effective October 1, 2016 and others are effective July 1, 2019.
MILL RATES
Beginning in FY 18, the law establishes a mechanism for increasing PILOT grants for the 35 municipalities with the highest percentage of tax-exempt property on their grand lists, provided their mill rates are at least 25. The act specifies that the mill rate used to determine which municipalities qualify for the increased PILOTs is the mill rate imposed on real and personal property other than motor vehicles. (PA 16-3, May Special Session (MSS) (§§ 190 & 191), delays the implementation of this mechanism until FY 20 and makes conforming changes. It also makes identical technical changes to the PILOT statutes. )
The act makes a similar change to the mill rate used to calculate reduced property tax assessments under a local option property tax relief program for qualifying commercial and industrial property owners in municipalities with state-approved enterprise zones.
BACKGROUND
Related Act
PA 16-3, MSS (§ 187), similarly extends the motor vehicle mill rate cap for districts and boroughs to the 2017 assessment year and thereafter. It also increases the cap from (1) 32 mills to 37 mills for the 2015 assessment year and (2) 29. 36 mills to 32 mills for the 2016 assessment year and thereafter.
OLR Tracking: RP; TA; PF; bs