Matt Soper

The act authorizes a county, special district, or school district to negotiate property tax relief with a taxpayer that establishes or expands a "qualified communication services facility", which is a facility or other real or personal property used in the provision of fixed broadband or mobile broadband internet access service, if the facility will serve an unserved or underserved area of the county, special district, or school district. The act sets limits and standards for the tax relief.

The act also amends the legislative declaration for the statute establishing a sales tax refund for rural broadband service providers by:


Stating that requirements to pay sales and use tax on federal-funded and state-funded broadband deployment reduce the efficacy and impact of the federal and state deployment grant money;
Noting that wireless telecommunications technologies rely on forms of broadband infrastructure like fiber and landline networks and are, therefore, interconnected to broadband; and
Including a tax preference performance statement for the sales tax refund indicating that a purpose of the sales tax refund is to incentivize private sector investment in broadband infrastructure.(Note: This summary applies to this bill as enacted.)