AB 508

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 those prohibitions.

Under the bill, if a cemetery authority erects, maintains, owns, operates, or is

financially connected to a funeral establishment, that cemetery authority may not

prohibit the burial at the cemetery authority's cemetery of a deceased individual

whose human remains were prepared for burial or transportation or whose funeral

services were conducted at a funeral establishment other than a funeral

establishment that the cemetery authority erects, maintains, owns, or operates, or

to which the cemetery authority is financially connected. Also, 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 burial or transportation at that funeral establishment.

Current law authorizes the cemetery authority of a cemetery that is affiliated

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

of the 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 that

authorization. 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 the human remains were

prepared for burial or transportation or the funeral services were conducted at a

funeral establishment other than a funeral establishment that the cemetery

authority erects, maintains, owns, or operates, or to which the cemetery authority

is financially connected.

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.