AN ACT Relating to providing a reduced public utility tax for log transportation businesses; amending RCW 82.16.020; reenacting and amending RCW 82.16.010; creating a new section; providing an effective date; and declaring an emergency.

BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF WASHINGTON:

(1) The legislature categorizes this tax preference as one intended to provide tax relief for certain businesses or individuals, as indicated in RCW 82.32.808(2)(e).

(2) It is the legislature's specific public policy objective to support the forest products industry due in part to the industry's efforts to support the local economy by focusing on Washington state based resources thereby reducing global environmental impacts through the manufacturing and use of wood. It is the legislature's intent to provide the forest products industry permanent tax relief by lowering the public utility tax rate attributable to log transportation businesses. Because this reduced public utility rate is intended to be permanent, the reduced rate established in this act is not subject to the ten-year expiration provision in RCW 82.32.805(1)(a).

Sec. 2.  RCW 82.16.010 and 2009 c 535 s 1110 are each reenacted and amended to read as follows:

For the purposes of this chapter, unless otherwise required by the context:

(1) "Express business" means the business of carrying property for public hire on the line of any common carrier operated in this state, when such common carrier is not owned or leased by the person engaging in such business.

(2) "Gas distribution business" means the business of operating a plant or system for the production or distribution for hire or sale of gas, whether manufactured or natural.

(3) "Gross income" means the value proceeding or accruing from the performance of the particular public service or transportation business involved, including operations incidental thereto, but without any deduction on account of the cost of the commodity furnished or sold, the cost of materials used, labor costs, interest, discount, delivery costs, taxes, or any other expense whatsoever paid or accrued and without any deduction on account of losses.

(4) "Light and power business" means the business of operating a plant or system for the generation, production or distribution of electrical energy for hire or sale and/or for the wheeling of electricity for others.

(5) "Log transportation business" means the business of transporting logs by truck, other than exclusively upon private roads.

(6) "Motor transportation business" means the business (except urban transportation business) of operating any motor propelled vehicle by which persons or property of others are conveyed for hire, and includes, but is not limited to, the operation of any motor propelled vehicle as an auto transportation company (except urban transportation business), common carrier, or contract carrier as defined by RCW 81.68.010 and 81.80.010. However, "motor transportation business" does not mean or include: (a) A log transportation business; or (b) the transportation of logs or other forest products exclusively upon private roads or private highways.

(((6))) (7)(a) "Public service business" means any of the businesses defined in subsections (1), (2), (4), (((5), (7),)) (6), (8), (9), (((11), and)) (10), (12), and (13) of this section or any business subject to control by the state, or having the powers of eminent domain and the duties incident thereto, or any business hereafter declared by the legislature to be of a public service nature, except telephone business and low-level radioactive waste site operating companies as redefined in RCW 81.04.010. It includes, among others, without limiting the scope hereof: Airplane transportation, boom, dock, ferry, pipe line, toll bridge, toll logging road, water transportation and wharf businesses.

(b) The definitions in this subsection (((6))) (7)(b) apply throughout this subsection (((6))) (7).

(i) "Competitive telephone service" has the same meaning as in RCW 82.04.065.

(ii) "Network telephone service" means the providing by any person of access to a telephone network, telephone network switching service, toll service, or coin telephone services, or the providing of telephonic, video, data, or similar communication or transmission for hire, via a telephone network, toll line or channel, cable, microwave, or similar communication or transmission system. "Network telephone service" includes the provision of transmission to and from the site of an internet provider via a telephone network, toll line or channel, cable, microwave, or similar communication or transmission system. "Network telephone service" does not include the providing of competitive telephone service, the providing of cable television service, the providing of broadcast services by radio or television stations, nor the provision of internet access as defined in RCW 82.04.297, including the reception of dial-in connection, provided at the site of the internet service provider.

(iii) "Telephone business" means the business of providing network telephone service. It includes cooperative or farmer line telephone companies or associations operating an exchange.

(iv) "Telephone service" means competitive telephone service or network telephone service, or both, as defined in (b)(i) and (ii) of this subsection.

(((7))) (8) "Railroad business" means the business of operating any railroad, by whatever power operated, for public use in the conveyance of persons or property for hire. It shall not, however, include any business herein defined as an urban transportation business.

(((8))) (9) "Railroad car business" means the business of operating stock cars, furniture cars, refrigerator cars, fruit cars, poultry cars, tank cars, sleeping cars, parlor cars, buffet cars, tourist cars, or any other kinds of cars used for transportation of property or persons upon the line of any railroad operated in this state when such railroad is not owned or leased by the person engaging in such business.

(((9))) (10) "Telegraph business" means the business of affording telegraphic communication for hire.

(((10))) (11) "Tugboat business" means the business of operating tugboats, towboats, wharf boats or similar vessels in the towing or pushing of vessels, barges or rafts for hire.

(((11))) (12) "Urban transportation business" means the business of operating any vehicle for public use in the conveyance of persons or property for hire, insofar as (a) operating entirely within the corporate limits of any city or town, or within five miles of the corporate limits thereof, or (b) operating entirely within and between cities and towns whose corporate limits are not more than five miles apart or within five miles of the corporate limits of either thereof. Included herein, but without limiting the scope hereof, is the business of operating passenger vehicles of every type and also the business of operating cartage, pickup, or delivery services, including in such services the collection and distribution of property arriving from or destined to a point within or without the state, whether or not such collection or distribution be made by the person performing a local or interstate line-haul of such property.

(((12))) (13) "Water distribution business" means the business of operating a plant or system for the distribution of water for hire or sale.

(((13))) (14) The meaning attributed, in chapter 82.04 RCW, to the term "tax year," "person," "value proceeding or accruing," "business," "engaging in business," "in this state," "within this state," "cash discount" and "successor" shall apply equally in the provisions of this chapter.

Sec. 3.  RCW 82.16.020 and 2013 2nd sp.s. c 9 s 7 are each amended to read as follows:

(1) There is levied and ((there shall be)) collected from every person a tax for the act or privilege of engaging within this state in any one or more of the businesses herein mentioned. The tax ((shall be)) is equal to the gross income of the business, multiplied by the rate set out after the business, as follows:

(a) Express, sewerage collection, and telegraph businesses: Three and six-tenths percent;

(b) Light and power business: Three and sixty-two one-hundredths percent;

(c) Gas distribution business: Three and six-tenths percent;

(d) Urban transportation business: Six-tenths of one percent;

(e) Vessels under sixty-five feet in length, except tugboats, operating upon the waters within the state: Six-tenths of one percent;

(f) Motor transportation, railroad, railroad car, and tugboat businesses, and all public service businesses other than ones mentioned above: One and eight-tenths of one percent;

(g) Water distribution business: Four and seven-tenths percent;

(h) Log transportation business: One and twenty-eight one- hundredths percent. The reduced rate established in this subsection (1)(h) is not subject to the ten-year expiration provision in RCW 82.32.805(1)(a).

(2) An additional tax is imposed equal to the rate specified in RCW 82.02.030 multiplied by the tax payable under subsection (1) of this section.

(3) Twenty percent of the moneys collected under subsection (1) of this section on water distribution businesses and sixty percent of the moneys collected under subsection (1) of this section on sewerage collection businesses ((shall)) must be deposited in the education legacy trust account created in RCW 83.100.230 from July 1, 2013, through June 30, 2019, and thereafter in the public works assistance account created in RCW 43.155.050.

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