Opinion ID: 1163456
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Heading: Value in Arizona tax assessment

Text: For tax purposes, Arizona values all property at full cash value. A.R.S. § 42-221(B). In Arizona and nationally, full cash value generally means fair market value. See, e.g., Supervisor of Assessments v. Har Sinai West Corp., 95 Md. App. 631, 622 A.2d 786, 794 (Md. Ct. Spec. App. 1993), BLACK'S LAW DICTIONARY 597-98 (6th ed. 1990). Until 1989, the definition section of the Arizona tax statutes explicitly defined full cash value for property taxation as synonymous with market value. A.R.S. § 42-201(4). That continued an Arizona tradition dating at least to 1913, when the first state legislature decreed: All taxable property must be assessed at its full cash value. The term full cash value ... means the price at which property would sell if voluntarily offered for sale by the owner thereof, upon such terms as such property is usually sold, and not the price which might be realized if such property was sold at a forced sale. Rev.Stat.Ariz., Civil Code § 4849 (1913); see also Rev.Code Ariz. § 3068 (1928) (same); Ariz.Code § 73-203 (1939) (same); Bank of Arizona v. Howe, 293 F. 600, 609 (D.Ariz. 1923) (It will be seen by the Constitution and laws of the state that ... all taxable property within the state must be assessed at its full cash value.); Federal Land Bank v. County of Yuma, 42 Ariz. 45, 48, 22 P.2d 405, 406 (1933) (The law requires that all property be assessed at its full cash value.). In 1989, the legislature tempered the full cash value premise by amending the general tax definitions. A.R.S. § 42-201(4); 1989 Ariz. Sess. Laws ch. 259, § 1. After the 1989 amendment, full cash value for property tax purposes meant that value determined as prescribed by statute. If no statutory method is prescribed, full cash value is synonymous with market value. § 42-201(4). It is important to note that this 1989 law specifically identified and reaffirmed the general traditional approach using market value as the standard goal for tax valuation.