On Tuesday, Kevin Kinnally testified in front of the Ways & Means Committee in support of HB 465 State Department of Assessments and Taxation – Distribution of Recordation and Transfer Tax Revenues.

According to the testimony, this bill would “simplify the process for collecting and distributing local recordation and transfer taxes.”

Also from the MACo Testimony:

Over a decade ago, counties received legislative authority to collect recordation taxes through their own finance offices, rather than through the clerk of the court. Since then, several counties transferred responsibility for collecting recordation taxes to their county finance offices. It appears that during that time, five jurisdictions failed to receive their fair shares of State-collected recordation taxes. The funds owed to these counties were mistakenly distributed to the other 19 counties, as the Comptroller fully allocated all of the State-collected recordation taxes each year.

HB 465 changes the process moving forward so that the recordation tax is distributed according to where property is located, just like the county transfer tax. This simplification of the process eliminates unnecessary bureaucracy and streamlines these distributions to protect against the recurrence of this type of error.

For more on 2019 MACo legislation, visit the Legislative Database.