Implement Maine PTFC unknown-utilities 15% rule (Schedule PTFC line 5c) - #9267
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Implement Maine PTFC unknown-utilities 15% rule (Schedule PTFC line 5c)#9267DTrim99 wants to merge 1 commit into
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Maine's property tax fairness credit computes rent constituting property taxes as 15% of rent, after excluding any heat/utilities included in the rent. Schedule PTFC/STFC line 5c provides that when the rent includes utilities but the amount is not known, 15% of gross rent is treated as the utility portion. me_property_tax_fairness_credit_countable_rent previously left that fallback unimplemented, so a filer whose rent includes utilities but who did not itemize a utility amount received no utility exclusion. Add the 15% fallback and a parameter for the fraction. Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
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Surfaced by PolicyEngine/policyengine-taxsim#1126 (ME renter with rent that includes utilities).
Problem
Maine's property tax fairness credit treats 15% of rent as "rent constituting property taxes," after first excluding any heat/utilities included in the rent. Per 2022 Schedule PTFC/STFC line 5c: if the rent includes utilities and the amount is known, subtract it; if the rent includes utilities and the amount is not known, subtract 15% of gross rent instead.
me_property_tax_fairness_credit_countable_rentonly handled the known-amount case (utilities_included_in_rent * utility_expense) and its comment noted the unknown-amount branch was "not implemented." So a filer whose rent includes utilities but who did not itemize a utility amount received no utility exclusion at all, overstating the countable rent (and the credit).Fix
utilities_included_in_rentis true and the utility amount is unknown (utility_expenseis 0), deduct 15% of gross rent before applying the 15% rent-constituting-property-tax rate.gov.states.me.tax.income.credits.fairness.property_tax.rate.utilities_included_in_rent(0.15) for the utility fraction.Example
Rent $17,139 with utilities included, amount unknown: utility portion = 15% × 17,139 = 2,571; countable rent = 15% × (17,139 − 2,571) = 2,185, matching the Maine worksheet (previously PE used the full 15% × 17,139 = 2,571). The known-amount and utilities-not-included cases are unchanged.