Washington Administrative Code › Title 458 - Revenue, Department of › Chapter 458-20 - Excise tax rules › Section 458-20-262 - Retail sales and use tax exemptions for farmworker housing

Current through Register Vol. 24-14, July 15, 2024
(1)
Introduction.
RCW
			 82.08.02745 and
			 82.12.02685 provide a retail sales
			 and use tax exemption for farmworker housing. This section also explains the
			 exemptions, who is entitled to the exemptions and how to obtain an exemption
			 certificate.
(2)
Definitions.
The following definitions apply throughout this
			 section.
(a) "Farmworker" means a single
			 person, or all members of a household, whether such persons are related or not,
			 if the combined household income earned from farm work is at least $3,000 per
			 calendar year.
(b) "Farm work"
			 means services relating to:
(i) Cultivating
			 the soil, raising or harvesting, or catching, netting, handling, planting,
			 drying, packing, grading, storing, or preserving in its unmanufactured state
			 any agricultural or aquacultural commodity;
(ii) Delivering to storage, market, or a
			 carrier for transportation to market or to processing any agricultural or
			 aquacultural commodity; or
(iii)
			 Working in a processing plant and directly handling agricultural or
			 aquacultural product.
(c)
			 "Agricultural employer" means any person engaged in agricultural activity,
			 including the growing, producing, or harvesting of farm or nursery products, or
			 engaged in the forestation or reforestation of lands, which includes but is not
			 limited to the planting, transplanting, tubing, precommercial thinning, and
			 thinning of trees and seedlings, the clearing, piling and disposal of brush and
			 slash, the harvest of Christmas trees, and other related activities as defined
			 in RCW
			 19.30.010; and including any employer engaged
			 in aquaculture as defined in
			 RCW
			 15.85.020.
(d) "Farmworker housing" means all facilities
			 provided by an agricultural employer, housing authority, local government,
			 state or federal agency, nonprofit community or neighborhood-based organization
			 that is exempt from income tax under section 501(c) of the Internal Revenue
			 Code of 1986 (26 U.S.C. sec. 501(c)), or for-profit provider of housing for
			 housing farmworkers on a year-round or seasonal basis, including bathing, food
			 handling, hand washing, laundry, and toilet facilities, single-family and
			 multifamily dwelling units and dormitories; and including labor camps as
			 defined under
			 RCW
			 70.114A.110.
(i) "Farmworker housing" may include the
			 following:
(A) Mobile homes, travel trailers,
			 mobile bunkhouses, modular homes, fabricated components of a house, and tents;
			 and
(B) Housing occupied by a
			 household with at least one member who is a farmworker; and
(C) Housing occupied by a farmworker on a
			 seasonal basis, where the housing is not used as farmworker housing for a
			 portion of the year, such as when it is rented to the general public when not
			 being used for farmworker housing.
(ii) "Farmworker housing" does not include:
(A) Housing regularly provided on a
			 commercial basis to the general public; and
(B) Housing provided by a housing authority
			 unless at least 80 percent of the occupants are farmworkers whose adjusted
			 income is less than 50 percent of median family income, adjusted for household
			 size, for the county where the housing is provided; and
(C) Housing provided to farmworkers providing
			 services related to the growing, raising, or producing of cannabis.
(e) "Person" means any
			 individual, receiver, administrator, executor, assignee, trustee in bankruptcy,
			 trust, estate, firm, copartnership, joint venture, club, company, joint stock
			 company, business trust, municipal corporation, political subdivision of the
			 state of Washington, corporation, limited liability company, association,
			 society, or any group of individuals acting as a unit, whether mutual,
			 cooperative, fraternal, nonprofit, or otherwise and the United States or any
			 instrumentality thereof.
			 RCW
			 82.04.030.
(f) "Agricultural land" has the same meaning
			 as "farm and agricultural land" in
			 RCW
			 84.34.020(2).