Machinery and equipment defined

"Machinery and equipment" means:

"Industrial fixture" means an item attached to a building or to land. Fixtures become part of the real estate to which they are attached and upon attachment are classified as real property, not personal property. Examples of "industrial fixtures" are fuel oil lines, boilers, craneways, and certain concrete slabs.

“Device” is an item that is not attached to the building or site. Examples of devices are: Forklifts, chainsaws, air compressors, clamps, free standing shelving, software, ladders, wheelbarrows, and pulleys.

"Support facilities," and "Support facility" means a part of a building, or a structure or improvement, used to contain or steady an industrial fixture or device. A support facility must be specially designed and necessary for the proper functioning of the industrial fixture or device and must perform a function beyond being a building or a structure or an improvement. It must have a function relative to an industrial fixture or a device. To determine if some portion of a building is a support facility, the parts of the building are examined. For example, a highly specialized structure, like a vibration reduction slab under a microchip clean room, is a support facility. Without the slab, the delicate instruments in the clean room would not function properly. The ceiling and walls of the clean room are not support facilities if they only serve to define the space and do not have a function relative to an industrial fixture or a device.

Tangible personal property that becomes an ingredient or component of any of the above, including repair parts and replacement parts. 

"Machinery and equipment" includes pollution control equipment installed and used in a qualifying operation to prevent air pollution, water pollution, or contamination that might otherwise result from the operation.  

The machinery & equipment must be “used directly in a manufacturing operation, testing operation, or research and development operation.” 

Items that are not used directly in a qualifying operation are not eligible for the exemption.  RCW 82.08.02565 provides eight descriptions of the phrase "used directly."  The manner in which a person uses an item of machinery and equipment must match one of these descriptions.  If machinery and equipment is not "used directly" it is not eligible for the exemption. 

Machinery and equipment is "used directly" in a manufacturing operation, testing operation, or research and development operation, if the machinery and equipment meets any one of the following criteria:

1. Acts upon or interacts with an item of tangible personal property.   Examples of this are drill presses, cement mixers (agitators), ready-mix concrete trucks, hot steel rolling machines, rock crushers, and band saws.  Also included is machinery and equipment used to repair, maintain, or install tangible personal property.  Computers qualify under this criteria if:
   1. They direct or control machinery or equipment that acts upon or interacts with tangible personal property; or  
   2. If they act upon or interact with an item of tangible personal property.
       
2. Conveys, transports, handles, or temporarily stores an item of tangible personal property at the manufacturing site or the testing site.  Examples of this are wheelbarrows, handcarts, storage racks, forklifts, tanks, vats, robotic arms, piping, and concrete storage pads. Floor space in buildings does not qualify. 

   Items that are used to ship the product or in which the product is packaged are not eligible under this criterion. This includes materials used to brace or support an item during transport.

   Storage of raw material or other tangible personal property, packaging of tangible personal property, and other activities that potentially qualify under the "used directly" criteria, and that do not constitute manufacturing in and of themselves, must take place at the manufacturing site to qualify for the exemption.
    

3. Controls, guides, measures, verifies, aligns, regulates, or tests tangible personal property at the site or away from the site.   Examples of "away from the site" are road testing of trucks, air testing of planes, or water testing of boats, with the machinery and equipment used off site in the testing eligible under this criteria.  Machinery and equipment used to take readings or measurements is eligible under this criterion.
    
4. Provides physical support for or access to tangible personal property.  Examples of this are catwalks adjacent to production equipment, scaffolding around tanks, braces under vats, and ladders near controls.  Machinery and equipment used for access to the building or to provide a work space for people or a space for tangible personal property or machinery and equipment, such as stairways or doors, is not eligible.
    
5. Produces power for or lubricates machinery and equipment.  A generator providing power to a sander is an example of machinery and equipment that produces power for machinery and equipment.  An electrical generating plant that provides power for a building is not eligible.  Lubricating devices, such as hoses, oil guns, pumps, and meters, whether or not attached to machinery and equipment, are eligible.
    
6. Produces another item of tangible personal property for use in the manufacturing operation, testing operation, or research and development operation.  Machinery and equipment that makes dies, jigs, or molds, and printers that produce camera-ready images.
    
7. Places tangible personal property in the container, package, or wrapping in which the tangible personal property is normally sold or transported.
    
8. Is integral to research and development as defined in RCW 82.63.010.
   "Integral" means the machinery and equipment is necessary for research and development.

   Example, an electrical apparatus used directly in a research and development operation need only be “integral” to the research and development operation to be entitled to the M&E exemption. There is no requirement that it act upon or interact with an item of tangible personal property or produce power for machinery and equipment

Examples of items that are not used directly in a qualifying operation:

• Cafeteria furniture
• Safety equipment not part of qualifying M&E
• Packaging materials
• Shipping materials 
• Administrative or office equipment