Bank of America Skirts $5 Million Florida Mortgage Tax Bill

Bank of America NA is free of more than $5 million in transaction taxes on refinanced and renewed mortgages following a Wednesday ruling by a Florida appeals court.

The Florida Court of Appeals, First District, rejected the state’s argument that the refinanced mortgages are new loans subject to tax on the full balance.

“The evidence indicated that the borrowers’ obligations to pay the balance on their original loans to the Bank did not vanish,” Judge Timothy D. Osterhaus wrote for the panel. Rather, the obligations of the old loans “were rolled into the new loans,” he said.

The ruling could ...