Minnesota Legislature Passes Remote Notary Emergency Measure and Bonding Bill

Last week, during a special legislative session the Minnesota House took up and unanimously passed a bill that permits video conferencing to satisfy the requirement to appear personally before a notarial officer for certain conveyances.
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The bill deems that the requirement to appear in person is met if both the notarial officer and the signer are both in Minnesota and communicate via video conference. The bill also requires that the notarial officer meet several requirements, including:

• Taking reasonable steps to ensure the integrity, security, and authenticity of the audio and video record of the performance of the notarial act
• Maintaining a backup of the audio and video record required in paragraph and protecting the record and the backup from unauthorized access or use.
• Maintaining the recording for at least ten years after the date of the transaction or proceeding.

The full language of the bill can be found online.

Later last week, the Minnesota Senate passed the bill unanimously and goes to Governor Walz, who is expected to sign it. If Governor Walz signs the bill, it would become law immediately but will only remain in effect until January 6, 2021.
Also as part of the special session, the House and Senate both took up and passed a $1.87 billion bonding bill meant to pay for hundreds of infrastructure improvement projects around the state ranging from roads and bridges to wastewater facilities and higher education asset preservation.

Several tax provisions were also part of the package, including a tax break meant to help farmers and small business owners that would increase the deduction on like-kind exchanges from 20% to 100% and make the change retroactive for tax years 2018 and 2019.
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This would allow small businesses and farmers to deduct the full expense during the first year after buying a piece of equipment and putting it into operation. Changes at the federal level have in the last couple of years required such purchases to be counted as income, which meant a higher tax bill for some. But the federal government allows a full deduction, and the so-called “full section 179 expensing” proposed in the bill would bring the Minnesota tax code into alignment.