The State Tax Assessor may establish procedures permitting payment of taxes by the use of credit cards. The assessor may contract with one or more entities for the purpose of enabling the assessor to accept and process credit card transactions only if under any such contract the State does not incur any charges or fees from accepting payment by credit card, the State does not have any liability to the credit card company or processor from nonpayment of credit card charges by the taxpayer, any fee associated with payment of taxes by credit card is disclosed to the taxpayer prior to commencement of the transaction and directly charged to the taxpayer and collected by the processor, all credit card payments are electronically transmitted to the State by the processor immediately upon approval of the credit transaction and the processor retains all responsibility for approving or rejecting all proposed credit card payments.

Sec. 4. 36 MRSA §653, sub-§1, ¶D-1, as amended by PL 2003, c. 702, §2, is further amended to read:

D-1. The estates up to the just value of $47,500 $50,000, having a taxable situs in the place of residence, for specially adapted housing units, of veterans who served in the Armed Forces of the United States during any federally recognized war period, including the Korean Campaign, the Vietnam War and the Persian Gulf War, and who are paraplegic veterans within the meaning of 38 United States Code, Chapter 21, Section 2101, and who received a grant from the United States Government for any such housing, or of the unremarried widows or widowers of such veterans. A veteran of the Vietnam War must have served on active duty for a period of more than 180 days, any part of which occurred after February 27, 1961 and before May 8, 1975 in the case of a veteran who served in the Republic of Vietnam during that period and after August 4, 1964 and before May 7, 1975 in all other cases, unless the veteran died in service or was discharged for a service-connected disability after that date. "Vietnam War" means the period between August 5, 1964 and May 7, 1975 and the period beginning on February 28, 1961 and ending on May 7, 1978 in the case of a veteran who served in the Republic of Vietnam during that period. "Persian Gulf War" means service on active duty on or after August 7, 1990 and before or on the date that the United States Government recognizes as the end of that war period. The exemption provided in this paragraph applies to the property of the veteran including property held in joint tenancy with a spouse or held in a revocable living trust for the benefit of that veteran.