Relates to establishing the broadband investment tax stabilization (BITS) act

◆ The sponsor's argument

Why Kevin S. Parker says this is needed

This legislation is intended to align the taxation of personal property used to provide wireless telephone and Internet services with the legis- lative intent of Real Property law. Since this property was first constructed, wireless providers have paid real property taxes on fixed structures such as cell towers and other poles used to hold the equip- ment but not on the equipment itself as that has always been treated as personal property of the wireless providers. For example, a carrier with wireless equipment attached to a building pays rent to the building owner like any other tenant but does not pay real property tax on the equipment. A recent court of appeals decision has disrupted this under- standing and could be interpreted to mean that wireless providers would be required to pay tens, perhaps hundreds of millions of dollars in new property taxes across the state. Wireless companies are among the larg- est infrastructure builders in the nation. A significant increase in taxes when these companies are poised to build thousands of new small cell sites across the state will significantly curtail the build out, reducing the number of new private sector jobs that would be created while increasing the time it will take to build a 5G ready network. It may also increase the digital divide as the increased costs will make it very difficult to provide services in lower traffic areas of the state.

This is the sponsor's own case for the bill, quoted from their memorandum. It is not Agora's description of what the bill does.