BILL ANALYSIS

C.S.H.B. 3133

By: Gallego

Ways & Means

Committee Report (Substituted)

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE

The Tax Code exempts from property taxation buildings and tangible personal property owned and used exclusively by qualified charitable organizations.  To qualify for the exemption, a charitable organization must be organized exclusively to perform religious, charitable, scientific, literary, or educational purposes, and generally must be engaged in one or more specified charitable functions. One of those specified functions consists of providing certain support to the elderly and the handicapped without regard to their ability to pay.

The Javits-Wagner-O’Day Act requires federal agencies to procure certain goods and services from qualified nonprofit agencies for the blind and qualified nonprofit agencies for the severely handicapped.  The federal act defines such agencies as nonprofit agencies that are operated in the interest of blind or severely handicapped individuals and that employ blind or severely handicapped individuals for at least 75 percent of the labor hours required to produce commodities or provide services to fulfill certain federal agency contracts.

C.S.H.B. 3133 makes clear that the charitable function of providing support to the handicapped includes the provision of training and employment for the blind or the severely disabled under the federal Javits-Wagner-O’Day Act.

RULEMAKING AUTHORITY

It is the committee's opinion that this bill does not expressly grant any additional rulemaking authority to a state officer, department, agency, or institution.

ANALYSIS

C.S.H.B. 3133 reenacts and amends Section 11.18(d), Tax Code, as amended by Chapters 1034 (H.B. 1742) and 1341 (S.B. 1908), Acts of the 80th Legislature, Regular Session, 2007, to clarify that qualification for a property tax exemption by a charitable organization that provides support to the handicapped includes qualification through the provision to the handicapped, under the federal Javits-Wagner-O'Day Act relating to the blind and severely disabled, of training and employment in the production of commodities or in the provision of services.

C.S.H.B. 3133 establishes that, to the extent of any conflict, its provisions prevail over another act of the 81st Legislature, Regular Session, 2009, relating to nonsubstantive additions to and corrections in enacted codes.

EFFECTIVE DATE

January 1, 2010.

COMPARISON OF ORIGINAL AND SUBSTITUTE

C.S.H.B. 3133 differs from the original by making a technical change to the provision relating to a charitable organization that provides support to the handicapped.