Senate Bill S7080

                                 BILL NUMBER:  S7080

 TITLE OF BILL :

An act to amend the tax law, in relation to the nursing home
assessment credit

 PURPOSE :

To ensure that the existing income tax credit for nursing home
assessments shall also apply to the temporary assessment increase that
has been imposed pursuant to a 2011 law.

 SUMMARY OF PROVISIONS :

Section one of the bill amends paragraph 1 of subsection (hh) of
Section 606 of the Tax Law to provide that the personal income tax
credit for certain assessments imposed on residential health care
facilities shall also apply to any assessments which are imposed
pursuant to Chapter 59 of the Laws of 2011.

 JUSTIFICATION :

As part of New York State's system for financing health care programs,
certain assessments are imposed on residential health care facilities
pursuant to Section 2807-d of the Public Health Law. The current
              

assessment authorized by this section of law is 6%.

In order to ease the financial burden on nursing home residents,
legislation was enacted in 2005 to allow taxpayers a personal income
tax credit for any such assessments paid directly by the taxpayer (see
subsection (hh) of Section 606 of the Tax Law).

However, in recent years, an additional assessment has been imposed by
the Health Department. Budget legislation enacted in 2011 required a
2% across-the-board reduction in Medicaid payments, but provided
flexibility in utilizing alternative methods to achieve such savings
(see Section 90 of Part H of Chapter 59 of the Laws of 2011).

Pursuant to this authority, the Health Department has imposed an
additional assessment on residential health care facilities. The
current additional assessment is 0.8%, resulting in a combined
assessment of 6.8%.

Taxpayers who file for the nursing home assessment credit are
surprised to discover that they are only eligible for a credit of the
6% assessment, rather than the full 6.8% assessment. This situation
occurs because the Tax Law which authorizes the credit refers only to
assessments imposed pursuant to Section 2807-d of the Public Health
Law. Since the additional 0.8% assessment is imposed by the Health
Department's administrative authority exercised under a different law,
it is not currently subject to reimbursement.

This bill would amend the Tax Law in order to fulfill the intent of
the 2005 law and provide taxpayers the opportunity to recover all such
assessments that are directly billed to them.

 LEGISLATIVE HISTORY :

New bill

 FISCAL IMPLICATIONS :

To be determined

 EFFECTIVE DATE :
This act shall take effect immediately and shall apply to taxable
years beginning on and after January 1, 2017