Session Laws

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives in General Court assembled, and by the authority of the same, as follows:

SECTION 1. Section 18 of chapter 59 of the General Laws, as appearing in the 1986 Official Edition, is hereby amended by inserting after clause Second the following clause:-

Second A, For the purposes of this clause the following words shall have the following meanings:-

"Situated", repeated and regular use of a machine or type of machinery in a city or town in the conduct of the corporation's business. If machinery is regularly used in a city or town as of January first, it shall be deemed situated in that city or town regardless of its physical location on January first.

"Fair cash value", the machinery's actual fair cash value or, in the case of machinery which is part of a larger fleet of substantially similar machinery, the average fair cash value of the machines in that portion of the fleet physically located in a city or town during the year.

"Fairly apportioned", allocated so as to reflect only the amount of time during which property was physically located in a city or town, according to records kept by the corporation in the regular course of its business.

Any machinery used in the conduct of its business, and owned or in the possession of a domestic business or foreign corporation, as defined in section thirty of chapter sixty-three, which machinery is designed or used for the transportation of persons or goods within the commonwealth or interstate, including but not limited to: aircraft frames, aircraft engines, and aircraft avionics, shall be assessed as provided by this clause.

The assessed value of such machinery shall be its fair cash value fairly apportioned. Such apportionment shall be determined, for each type of machinery used in the city or town, by multiplying the fair cash value of such machinery by a figure representing the percentage of time the machinery or substantially similar machinery was physically located in a city or town during the year. Said figure may be based on one or more representative periods, to be at least one week each, which fairly reflect the typical amount of time each type of machinery is physically located in a city or town during that year.

The commissioner may issue regulations and guidelines for the assessment of such machinery which shall ensure that no tax shall be unfair, unreasonable or a burden on interstate commerce. Said guidelines may classify such machinery according to its type or the nature of its use, determine the basis for depreciation, set a maximum limit on the amount of time any machine or type of machine shall be considered in a city or town, or otherwise regulate the assessment and taxation of such machinery consistent with the purposes of this clause.

The provisions of this clause shall not be applicable to the property of foreign corporations chartered outside of the United States, nor to machinery the assessment of which is specifically provided for elsewhere in the General Laws or which is made exempt from the provisions of this clause by section forty-nine of chapter ninety.

SECTION 2. In the year in which the provisions of section one of this act are first exercised, the commissioner of revenue shall consider such property as subject to taxation for the first time for the purposes of paragraph (f) of section twenty-one C of chapter fifty-nine of the General Laws.

SECTION 3. The provisions of this act shall apply to fiscal years beginning on or after July first, nineteen hundred and eighty-eight.