Court Opinion

ID: 9735581
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 18:24:43.35825+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:27:00.146248
License: Public Domain

SHEPARD, Chief Justice,
dissenting.
My colleagues say that Article X, section 1, constricts the General Assembly in providing for taxation of property and that questions arising under the statutes the legislature enacts for this purpose are justiciable. They proceed to say a great deal about what Article X does not require, saying in particular that it does not require a system based on assessment of actual market value. As the submissions by the parties indicate, there are only three recognized methods by which value is estimated in the world of real estate: reproduction' cost, comparison of sales, and income capitalization. By declaring that using these market values is permitted but not required, I think the Court treats Article X as a dead letter. After all, if Article X creates justiciable constraints on assessment and taxation, what might those constraints be in the absence of any comparison of market prices?
Delegate Borden certainly understood that a system assessing properties at rates different than their market values was a problem Article X should solve. His comments to the Constitutional Convention, cited by the majority, constituted complaints about assessing an estate at $60,000 when it was actually worth $300,000. Op. at 322. In much the same vein, Delegate Daniel Read, also cited by my colleagues, complained that “farms which were of equal value assessed at a difference of fifty perc., and farms of less value than other farms, assessed at a much higher rate.” Id.
The essence of these statements is that things should not be assessed for tax purposes at values which differ from their value *329in the open market. The Court says that the Constitution does not require market value assessment, only “uniform and equal” assessment and taxation.7 I say, uniform and equal with respect to what? If market value is not the constitutional touchstone, how would a court ever determine that any system of taxation violated Article X? A system that levied exactly the same tax on every house in the state would be uniform and equal, to be sure. I think it would also be a surprise to Delegates Borden and Read that such a system complied with the constitutional provision they urged upon the Constitutional Convention. Given the irrelevance of market value, how could such a system not comply with Article X?
The error of this approach is illustrated, I think, by the Court’s treatment of Bright v. McCullough, 27 Ind. 223 (1866). The majority says that Bright “did not decide whether tax assessments must be based solely on assessed value.” Op. at 325. I note that most of the opinion in Bright is consumed with discussion about the need to use market value in assessing taxes on land and concludes by declaring that a tax setting a single rate per acre is “unconstitutional and void.” Bright, 27 Ind. at 233. I do not see how this can be called anything but an adjudication on the merits.
The Tax Court held that Article X actually means something. This Court basically says it does not. I stand with the Tax Court.

. I conclude that “uniform and equal" is the rule of Article X, section 1. The second clause, “just valuation,” I take simply to confer on the legislature the power to carry out the "uniform and equal" clause. This is the teaching of the Cleveland and Pittsburgh cases. The majority and I appear to agree on this point. Op. at 327.