ENGROSSED
COMMITTEE SUBSTITUTE
FOR
Senate Bill No. 181
(By Senators Jackson and Kessler)
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[Originating in the Committee on the Judiciary;
reported February 16, 1998.]
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A BILL to repeal section twenty-five, article one-a, chapter
eleven of the code of West Virginia, one thousand nine
hundred thirty-one, as amended; to amend and reenact section
ten, article three of said chapter; and to amend and reenact
section three, article twelve-d of said chapter; all
relating generally to the assessment and taxation of real or
personal property; providing for discretionary penalties for
refusal to furnish proper list of property, for refusal to
answer or for answering falsely questions posed by assessor
or tax commissioner, or for refusal to deliver statement;
requiring office of business registration or other
appropriate section of the department of tax and revenue to
annually provide a list of businesses registered within a
county to the county assessor at no cost; limiting fee for
additional lists; and making certain technical provisions.
Be it enacted by the Legislature of West Virginia:
That section twenty-five, article one-a, chapter eleven of
the code of West Virginia, one thousand nine hundred thirty-one,
as amended, be repealed; that section ten, article three of said
chapter be amended and reenacted; and that section three, article
twelve-d of said chapter be amended and reenacted, all to read as
follows:
ARTICLE 3. ASSESSMENTS GENERALLY.
§11-3-10. Failure to list property, etc.; collection of
penalties and forfeitures.
If any person, firm or corporation, including public service
corporations, whose duty it is by law to list any real estate or
personal property for taxation, shall refuse refuses to furnish
a proper list thereof or refuse refuses to list within the time
required by law, or if any person, firm or corporation, including
public service corporations, shall refuse refuses to answer or
shall answer answers falsely any question asked by the assessor
or by the tax commissioner, or shall fail or refuse fails or
refuses to deliver any statement required by law, he, she or it
shall may forfeit, at the discretion of the assessor or the tax
commissioner, not less than twenty-five nor more than one hundred
dollars, and shall be denied all remedy provided by law for the
correction of any assessment made by the assessor or by the board
of public works. If any person, firm or corporation, including
public service corporations, required by law to make return of property for taxation, whether such the return is to be made to
the assessor, the board of public works, or any other assessing
officer or body, fails to return a true list of all property
which should be assessed in this state, including notes, bonds,
bills and accounts receivable, stocks and any other intangible
personal property, such the person, firm or corporation, in
addition to all other penalties provided by law, shall forfeit
one percent of the value of the property not yet returned and not
otherwise taxed in this state. A forfeiture as to all property
aforesaid may be enforced for any such default occurring in any
year not exceeding five years immediately prior to the time the
same default is discovered, but no liability to penalty or
forfeiture as to notes, bonds, bills and accounts receivable,
stocks and other intangible personal property arising prior to
the first day of January, one thousand nine hundred thirty-three,
shall be is enforceable on behalf of the state or of any of its
subdivisions. Each failure to make a true return as herein
required shall constitute constitutes a separate offense, and a
forfeiture shall apply to each of them, but all such forfeitures,
to which the same person, firm or corporation is liable, shall be
enforced in one proceeding against such the person, firm or
corporation, or against the estate of any deceased person, and
shall may not exceed five percent of the value of the property
not returned. Such Forfeitures shall be collected as is
hereinafter provided under the provision of in article two, chapter eleven-a of this code, the same as any tax liability,
against the defaulting taxpayer, or in case of a decedent,
against his or her personal representative. The sheriff shall
apportion such fund among the state, county, district, school
district and municipalities which would have been entitled to the
taxes upon such the property if it had been assessed, in
proportion to the rates of taxation for each such levying unit
for the year in which the judgment was obtained bears to the sum
of rates for all. When the list of property returned by the
appraisers of the estate of any deceased person shows an amount
greater than the last assessment list of such the deceased person
next preceding the appraisal of his or her estate, it shall be is
prima facie evidence that such the deceased person returned an
imperfect list of his or her property: Provided, That any person
liable for the tax or his or her personal representative, may
always be permitted to prove by competent evidence that the
discrepancy between such the assessment list and the appraisal of
the estate is caused by a difference of valuation returned by the
assessor and that made by the appraisers of the same property or
by property acquired after assessment, or that any property
enumerated in the appraisers' list had been otherwise listed for
taxation, or that it was not liable for taxation. Any judgment
recovered under this section shall be is a lien, from the time of
the service of the notice, upon all real estate and personal
property of such the defaulting taxpayer, owned at the time or subsequently acquired, in preference to any other lien.
ARTICLE 12D. ESTABLISHMENT OF OFFICE OF BUSINESS REGISTRATION;
CREATION OF CENTRALIZED RECORDS.
§11-12D-3. Agency contact list; dispersal of data base
information to agencies; agency contact with prospective
businesses.
(a) An agency contact list consisting of those state
government agencies and offices having registration, licensing or
other similar statutory provisions related to the initiation of
new businesses in West Virginia or which should otherwise have
contact with a new business, will be maintained by the office of
business registration in conjunction with the centralized records
for new business registration.
(b) Based upon the proposed location, size, number of
employees, type of business, standard industry code or codes and
other pertinent information relating to the business, each
prospective new business, upon having a record established in the
centralized records for new business registration, shall be
informed by the office of business registration of those the
state agencies or offices having a registration, licensing and
other similar statutory provisions related to the initiation of
a new business in West Virginia or other function relating to
prospective new business such that the agency or office should by
law or regulation be given notice of the establishment or
operation of a new business in West Virginia. The office of business registration shall establish a record of the new
business in the centralized data base for the use and benefit of
any agency or officer of the state of West Virginia having access
to the data base and which should, by law, or regulation receive
notice of the establishment or operation of a particular
business. The record should contain such information as is
necessary to fulfill the regulatory, registration or licensing
function of that the agency, or in lieu of such information, the
name, address and other pertinent information relating to the
particular business whereby the agency or office may initiate
such procedures or make such contact with the particular business
as is appropriate for the fulfillment of the regulatory,
registration, licensing or other statutory duties of the office
or agency.
(c) The office of business registration or some other
appropriate section of the department of tax and revenue shall
provide a list of the names and addresses of all registered
businesses located within each county to the county assessor.
The list shall be provided at no cost to the county assessor
between the first day of July and the first day of August of each
year. Any additional list of businesses provided to the county
assessor before the next annual list is provided shall be
provided at no more than the actual cost to reproduce the list.
The production of information required by the provisions of this
subsection shall be considered an exception to and not violative of any requirement for confidentiality otherwise established
under the provisions of this chapter.