The Finance Committee in the state House of Representatives voted Thursday to send a bill that would do away with the taxing of meals at independent living facilities for seniors to the House Rules Committee.
Two amendments to House Bill 1431 were made during the committee meeting. They had to do with refunds of taxes paid and a clarification on sales and use tax.
Initially, the bill included retroactive forgiveness of collected tax on these meals.
A representative from the Department of Revenue said at a public hearing Feb. 2 that gifting, or refunding, public funds would be unconstitutional.
“There’s a question around, administratively, how would this happen. So that’s a big question,” Rep. Sharon Tomiko Santos said during Thursday’s meeting. “But there’s another question around the constitutionality of being able to return dollars that have already been deposited into the general fund.”
The bill was also amended to include a clarification that, if passed, independent living facilities would be excluded from paying both sales and use tax.
“Sales and use tax are two sides of the same coin, so to speak, in the state of Washington,” Santos said. “This is about fairness and making sure that while we are exempting for sales tax, we would also do the same for those who would be obligated to pay use tax.”
Some seniors throughout the state have voiced their support of the bill.
No taxes on meals would save seniors an average of $550 to $700 a year, according to Cascade Living Group, which owns 30 senior living facilities throughout the U.S. including one in Mount Vernon.
“We’re asking the state Legislature to put this expressively in the law so that our seniors will not have to bear this tax and the Department of Revenue cannot arbitrarily come down on us,” said Quinn Stanley, in-house counsel for Cascade Living Group.
Now that the bill has made it out of the Finance Committee, it will move on for further consideration. A date for the next discussion of the bill has not been announced.
