Taxpayer, a port, sought review of county assessor’s denial of its request for a refund of additional taxes paid per sales agreement on land that port sold to a private entity after port and tenant agreed to end a lease on the land and the land was accordingly disqualified from the special assessment as nonexclusive farm use zone farmland.
The Tax Court, Regular Division, granted summary judgment for the Department of Revenue. Port appealed.
The Supreme Court of Oregon held that:
- The date the disqualification from special assessment is “taken into account on the assessment and tax roll” means the date the disqualification becomes effective on the assessment and tax roll, and
- Land was subject to additional taxes, which were based on prior years’ taxes avoided via the then-ended special assessment.
As used in the statute governing the assessment of additional taxes on land that has been disqualified from special assessment, the date the disqualification from special assessment is “taken into account on the assessment and tax roll” means the date the disqualification becomes effective on the assessment and tax roll, such that a disqualification that occurs between January 1 and June 30 becomes effective on the assessment and tax roll as of July 1, and a disqualification that occurs between July 1 and December 31 will not affect the taxes due until the following July 1.
Land that had been specially assessed as nonexclusive-farm-use-zone farmland and that taxpayer, a port, sold to a private entity on August 10 after taxpayer and tenant had agreed to end tenant’s lease on land a few days prior, was subject to additional taxes, which were based on prior years’ taxes avoided via the then-ended special assessment, and thus taxpayer was not entitled to a refund of the additional taxes that it paid via the sales agreement with the private entity. The disqualification from special assessment became effective on the assessment roll on the following January 1, and on that date the land was not “public property that was leased or rented to a taxable owner,” as required by statute imposing additional taxes on land disqualified from special assessments.