TAX - VIRGINIA

International Paper Company v. County of Isle of Wight

Supreme Court of Virginia - September 17, 2020 - S.E.2d - 2020 WL 5554579

Corporate taxpayer, which had successfully obtained tax refund judgment for prior tax years, filed application for correction of new county machine and tools tax assessment, claiming the assessment was non-uniform, invalid, and illegal.

The Isle of Wight Circuit Court granted county’s motion to strike, and taxpayer appealed.

The Supreme Court held that:

County’s machinery and tools tax plan did not improperly interfere with corporate taxpayer’s vested right to tax refund judgment, although tax plan may have “clawed back” the money paid to taxpayer under refund judgment, where taxpayer received the money it had a vested right to receive, county had authority to increase the tax rate, and tax increase did not retroactively alter the prior tax rates or interfere with the paid judgment.

County had the statutory and constitutional authority to impose taxes on corporate taxpayer’s machinery and tools property as well as authority to execute tax relief program, even if the practical effect was to “claw back” tax refunds paid to taxpayer for prior years; county did not revise previous assessments, but instead increased tax rate for subsequent years, and tax relief program was to help businesses negatively impacted by the adjustment to the tax rate.

Corporate taxpayer provided prima facie evidence sufficient to show that county machinery and tools tax relief program payments were integrated into the taxation process and had the same effect as partial tax exemptions, and thus that taxpayer’s machinery and tools tax assessment was non-uniform, invalid, and illegal, as required to survive motion to strike; stated purpose of tax relief program was to relieve liability for tax rate increase for certain class of taxpayers whom county deemed to be “harmed” by the rate increase, county structured the program to directly exempt certain tax liability and payments from the program directly offset tax liability, program factually correlated with tax rate increase and was funded predominantly by the tax rate increase, and relief payments were calculated by using tax figures.

Corporate taxpayer provided prima facie evidence that county machinery and tools tax assessment was non-uniform, invalid, and illegal; tax relief formula treated taxpayers differently based upon whether the county had lawfully owed that taxpayer a refund on taxes overpaid in prior years, which created a sub-class of taxpayers, refund and relief payment were negatively correlated, only taxpayers who had received a refund were required to pay the tax assessment increase, and net tax rates paid by taxpayers, given the payments made to some taxpayers by the tax relief program, were not uniform.



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