Corporate taxpayer, which owned oil spill prevention and response vessels stationed at a marine terminal that stored oil, appealed State Assessment Review Board’s (SARB) orders that were entered in city’s long-pending property-tax appeals and that stated SARB’s refusal to entertain arguments that certain tax years should not be included in a tax audit that spanned approximately 20 tax years.
The Superior Court reversed the orders related to the limitation on the audit and determined that the three-year statute of limitations applied. City appealed.
The Supreme Court held that:
- Prior superior-court decisions were not the law of the case so as to preclude finding that the three-year statute of limitations for assessments applied, and
- Even when an administrative tribunal or court holds that the Department of Revenue wrongly determined certain property was not taxable, the statute of limitations on assessments bars the Department from assessing a tax on the property more than three years after the tax return was filed.