AB 523

Current law prohibits a licensed funeral director from operating a funeral

establishment or mausoleum in a cemetery. Current law also prohibits a cemetery

authority from permitting a funeral establishment to be located on cemetery

property. With certain exceptions, current law prohibits a cemetery authority from

receiving or accepting any commission, fee, remuneration, or benefit of any kind from

a funeral establishment or from an owner, employee, or agent of a funeral

establishment. This bill eliminates each of these prohibitions.

Current law permits the cemetery authority of a cemetery that is affiliated with

a religious society to adopt regulations that prohibit the burial in the cemetery of

human remains of an individual who is not in the class of individuals identified by

the religious society for burial in the cemetery. This bill retains the right of a

religiously affiliated cemetery authority to adopt such regulations. However, under

the bill, a religiously affiliated cemetery authority may not adopt regulations that

prohibit the human remains of an individual from being buried at the cemetery

authority's cemetery because funeral services for the individual were conducted at

a funeral establishment other than a funeral establishment that has a financial

relationship with the cemetery authority's cemetery. Also, the religiously affiliated

cemetery authority may not adopt regulations that prohibit the human remains of

an individual from being buried at the cemetery authority's cemetery because the

human remains were prepared for burial or transportation at a funeral

establishment other than a funeral establishment that has a financial relationship

with the cemetery authority's cemetery.

Under the bill, if a cemetery authority erects, owns, operates, or has a financial

interest in a funeral establishment, that cemetery authority may not prohibit the

burial at the cemetery authority's cemetery of a deceased person whose human

remains were prepared for burial or whose funeral services were conducted at a

funeral establishment that has no relationship with the cemetery authority. Finally,

a funeral establishment that has an ownership or other financial relationship with

a cemetery authority may not require the human remains of a decedent to be buried

in the cemetery authority's cemetery as a condition of those human remains being

cared for or prepared for transportation or burial at that funeral establishment.

Under current law, land owned by a cemetery authority that is used exclusively

as public burial grounds, tombs, and monuments is exempt from the property tax.

In addition, personal property owned by the cemetery authority that is necessary for

the care and management of burial grounds and sites is exempt from the property

tax. Under the bill, land physically occupied by a funeral establishment, if the land

is located in a cemetery, is subject to the property tax.

Because this bill relates to an exemption from state or local taxes, it may be

referred to the Joint Survey Committee on Tax Exemptions for a report to be printed

as an appendix to the bill.