by Tim Dougherty, SD Lead Lobbyist 

The fifth week of the South Dakota legislative session ended on Thursday. The legislature was scheduled to meet this Monday through Thursday, but the Monday session was cancelled because of the winter storm that is passing through the state.  To make up for Monday, the Legislature will meet this Friday.

February 20 is the deadline for bills and resolutions to pass the house in which they were originally introduced. Each house of the legislature is divided into 13 standing committees.  Most committees have only two regularly scheduled meetings left to dispense with the bills that were referred to them and have not yet had a hearing in their house of origin.  Unlike some states, every bill introduced in the South Dakota Legislature is referred to a committee and that committee must hold a public hearing and take action on the bill.  Last session, 32 percent of the bills introduced in the senate were defeated in the senate committee (27%) or the senate floor (5%).  And 44 percent of the bills introduced in the house were defeated in the house committee (38%) or the house floor (6%).

Below are bills that may be of interest to credit unions. A copy of each bill is available at the following web address: http://legis.state.sd.us/sessions/2013/BillList.aspx

Bill No. HB 1043
Sponsor: Transportation Committee at the request of Department of Revenue
Title: An Act to authorize the Department of Revenue to establish an electronic title system for motor vehicles and to revise certain provisions regarding an electronic lien filing system.
Summary: This bill authorizes the department of revenue to establish an electronic title system for motor vehicles. A participant in the electronic title system must submit electronic applications for original vehicle titles in a form and format prescribed by the department. The department must verify the authenticity of the electronic information before the electronic title is issued.
Status: Passed House and Senate; delivered to Governor.

Bill No. HB 1045
Sponsor: State Affairs Committee at request of Department of Revenue
Title: An Act to repeal the lower rate of tax imposed on income over four hundred million dollars for the bank franchise tax.
Summary: This bill increases the bank franchise tax rate on net income that exceeds $400 million to 6%.
Status: Referred to House State Affairs Committee


Bill No. HB 1046
Sponsor: State Affairs Committee at request of Department of Revenue
Title: An Act to increase the penalties for the failure to timely and accurately
pay the bank franchise tax.
Summary: This bill increases the criminal penalty for failure to timely and accurately pay the bank franchise tax from a Class 1 misdemeanor to a Class 6 felony and it increases the civil penalty for such offense from $5,000 to $100,000.
Status: Referred to House State Affairs Committee

Bill No. HB 1053
Sponsor: State Affairs Committee at request of Department of Labor & Regulation
Title: An Act to revise the lending limit for state chartered banks.
Summary: for the purpose of calculating loan or credit limitations on state chartered banks, this bill defines a loan to include any credit exposure to a borrower arising from a derivative transaction, repurchase agreement, reverse repurchase agreement, securities lending transaction, or securities borrowing transaction between a bank and that borrower.
Status: Passed House and Senate; delivered to Governor.

Bill No. HB 1056
Sponsor:  State Affairs Committee at request of Department of Labor & Regulation
Title: An Act to revise various trust and trust company provisions.
Summary: This bill revises various regulations governing trust companies.
Status: Passed House; Referred to Senate State Affairs Committee

Bill No. HB 1071
Sponsor: Judiciary Committee at request of Chief Justice
Title: An Act to revise the contents of the application for the discharge of a civil judgment debt discharged in bankruptcy.
Summary: This bill requires that an application for discharge of a judgment be sworn under oath and include a statement that each judgment sought to be discharged was listed on the debtor's bankruptcy schedules, that no judgment sought to be discharged is nondischargeable under the bankruptcy code or no order was entered by the bankruptcy court declaring any of the judgments nondischargeable.
Status: Passed House; Passed Senate Judiciary Committee.

Bill No. HB 1096
Sponsor Representative Gosch
Title: An Act to transfer on death deeds for real property.
Summary: This bill authorizes the filing of a transfer on death deed. The deed must: (1) contain the essential elements and formalities of a properly recordable inter vivos deed; (2) state that the transfer to the designated beneficiary is to occur at the transferor's death; (3) state the language of conveyance as required by the standards of title; and (4) be recorded in the public records before the transferor's death in the office of the register of deeds in a county where at least a part of the property is located. The filing of the deed does not affect the rights of any creditors of the decedent.
Status: Passed House; referred to Senate Judiciary Committee.

Bill No. HB 1130
Sponsor: Representative Hickey
Title: An Act to revise the amount of personal property exempt from levy in bankruptcy cases.
Summary: This bill increases the personal property exemption for the head of a family from $6,000 to $8,000 and for a single person from $4,000 to $6,000.
Status: Passed House; referred to Senate Judiciary Committee.

Bill No. HB 1131
Sponsor: Representative Hickey
Title: An Act to revise the property exempted from levy in bankruptcy cases.
Summary: This bill provides an exemption from levy for an interest in motor vehicles not to exceed $5,000.
Status: Failed to pass House Judiciary Committee.

Bill No. HB 1171
Sponsor: Representative Hickey
Title: An Act to exempt certain property from bankruptcy levy.
Summary: As amended, this bill provides an absolute exemption from levy for health aids professionally prescribed to the debtor or to a dependant of the debtor.
Status: Passed House Judiciary Committee with amendment.

Bill No. HB 1219
Sponsor: Representative Hickey
Title: An Act to amend the benefit allowance exempt from levy in bankruptcy cases.
Summary: This bill increases the exemption for installment payments to any annuitant under annuity contracts from $250 to $350 per month.
Status    Failed to pass House Judiciary Committee.

Bill No. HB 1231
Sponsor: Representative Hajek
Title: An Act to change the rate and manner of calculation of prejudgment and postjudgment interest.
Summary: This bill changes the prejudgment and post judgment rate of interest in certain actions from a fixed rate of 10 percent to rate equal to 3 percentage points above the prime rate (currently 3.25%) in effect on January first of each year as reported by the federal reserve board in federal reserve statistical release H.15 and published by the state court administrator on the unified judicial system website. It does not apply to prejudgment interest on damages arising from contract if the contract provides a rate of interest (e.g., mortgage, security agreement, etc.).
Status: Referred to House Judiciary Committee.

Bill No. HB 1243
Sponsor: Representative Wick
Title: An Act to protect employees from certain automatic deductions or transfers for the purpose of funding political contributions.
Summary: This bill prohibits a person from consenting to an automatic payroll deduction or checking account transfer for the purposes of making political contributions to a candidate or cause unless the consent is voluntary and entered into prior to any deduction. The consent must be renewed at least annually.
Status: Referred to House Commerce Committee.

Bill No. SB 55
Sponsor: Senate State Affairs Committee at request of Department of Revenue
Title: An Act to make certain form and style changes regarding the bank
franchise tax.
Summary: This bill repeals the law that authorizes a bank franchise tax filer to unilaterally elect to make a consolidated report with affiliated corporations, and provides instead that the filer may petition the secretary of revenue to make a consolidated report.
Status: Passed Senate with amendment; referred to House State Affairs Committee.

Bill No. SB 56
Sponsor: State Affairs Committee at request of Department of Revenue
Title: An Act to define a credit card bank and to revise certain provisions regarding the distribution of the bank franchise tax.
Summary: As amended, this bill defines a credit card bank for purposes of the bank franchise tax (a) derives the majority of its income apportioned to this state from the use of credit cards, including income derived from fees, transactional costs, interest, and penalties, and also has total assets over ten billion dollars; or (b) was subject to the tax imposed by this chapter before July 1, 2013, and ninety-five percent of its tax receipts were historically distributed to the state general fund pursuant to § 10-43-76 before July 1, 2013.
Status: Passed Senate with amendment; referred to House State Affairs Committee.

Bill No. SB 102
Sponsor: Senator Adelstein
Title: An Act to regulate the submission of certain filings with the Office of the Secretary of State.
Summary: This bill prohibits the Secretary of State from making and enforcing any rule, policy, protocol, or practice that would prevent any persons from filing hard copy or paper copy in fulfilling an obligation to provide any document, data, information, or other material to the Office of the Secretary of State if the filer elects to do so.
Status: Failed to pass Senate State Affairs Committee.

Bill No. SB 111
Sponsor: Senator Soholt
Title: An Act to amend provisions of the Uniform Commercial Code relating to electronic funds transfers and to declare an emergency.
Summary: This bill provides that the funds transfer provisions of the UCC apply to a funds transfer that is a remittance transfer, as defined in the Electronic Fund Transfer Act of 1978 unless the remittance transfer is an electronic fund transfer, as defined in the Electronic Fund Transfer Act of 1978.
Status: Passed Senate Commerce Committee.

Bill No. SB 112
Sponsor: Senator Tiedemann
Title: An Act to repeal the lower rate of tax imposed on income over four hundred million dollars for the bank franchise tax.
Summary: This bill, which is identical to HB 1045, increases the bank franchise tax rate on net income that exceeds $400 million to 6%.
Status: Referred to Senate State Affairs Committee.

Bill No. SB 113
Sponsor: Senator Tiedemann
Title: An Act to increase the penalties for the failure to timely and accurately pay the bank franchise tax.
Summary: This bill, which is identical to HB 1046, increases the criminal penalty for failure to timely and accurately pay the bank franchise tax from a Class 1 misdemeanor to a Class 6 felony and it increases the civil penalty for such offense from $5,000 to $100,000.
Status: Referred to Senate State Affairs Committee.

Bill No. SB 116
Sponsor Senator Krebs
Title: An Act to establish a subordinate agricultural supplier's lien for an unpaid charge account billing statement.
Summary: This bill entitles a person who furnishes agricultural supplies for the production of agricultural property to a producer to file an agricultural supplier's lien upon the agricultural property produced by the use of the agricultural supplies. The lien may not be filed to secure money advanced or loaned for any purpose, and may only be filed against a producer for unpaid agricultural supplies where payment was due in full to the person who furnished agricultural supplies not more than thirty days after the billing statement date. The lien shall be valid for five years from the date of filing or until satisfied, whichever occurs first. The lien is subordinate to the rights of a person entitled to priority under the UCC and subordinate to a person that becomes a lien creditor before the earlier of the time the lien is perfected or a financing statement covering the collateral is filed.
Status: Referred to Senate Agriculture and Natural Resources Committee.