Opinion ID: 2356557
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: Timeliness of the 1974 Croydon appeal

Text: The board refused to consider taxpayer's 1974 Croydon application noting that the appeal, filed in 1975, came more than thirty days after the town's rendering of the 1974 tax bill (which did not reflect current use taxation). It reasoned that the taxpayer must then have known that its application had been denied. RSA 79-A:9 (I) (Supp. 1975) provides that the taxpayer may, on or before thirty days after any such action [denying an application] by the assessing officials ... apply to such board [of taxation] for a review.... RSA 79-A:5 (III) (Supp. 1975) requires that the assessing officials ... notify the applicant on a form provided by the commissioner no later than July first, or within fifteen days if the application is filed after July first, of their decision to classify or refusal to classify his parcel of land by delivery of such notification to him in person or by mailing such notification to his last and usual place of abode. [7] In the absence of such formal notification here, the board found an adequate substitute in the town's mailing to the taxpayer a 1974 tax bill which did not reflect current use assessment. We find this reasoning unpersuasive. The taxpayer could reasonably have believed that the tax bill represented administrative inertia rather than a decision on its application. Notwithstanding the tax bill, the taxpayer could have reasonably believed that its application was still in progress. We conclude that the board erred in its ruling that the 1974 Croydon application was untimely. To summarize: We properly have before us appeals from the following current use applications: The Croydon application for the 1974 tax year and the 1975 tax year applications for Plainfield, Cornish and Croydon. Although these appeals do not all possess the same procedural maturity, the substantive issues of fact and law raised in each are virtually identical. Accordingly, the following discussion on the merits is dispositive of each appeal.