Court Opinion

ID: 9505704
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-06 20:15:10.807798+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:04:43.928789
License: Public Domain

SULLIVAN, Justice,
concurring and dissenting.
Today we find it necessary to join the Tax Court in defining the parameters of state tax policy by declaring part of the property tax system unconstitutional. While there can be no doubt of our power to do so, separation of powers demands cautious use of it. See generally Indiana Wholesale Wine & Liquor v. State, 695 N.E.2d 99, 107 (Ind.1998); Citizens Nat’l Bank of Evansville v. Foster, 668 N.E.2d 1236, 1241 (Ind.1996).11 I can think of no area where we can be more confident of the ability of the normal democratic processes working as they should than in taxation. Residential, commercial, industrial and agricultural interests can well pursue and protect their respective interests in state tax policy before the executive and legislative branches without judicial intervention.
The decision to address the merits having-been made, I concur in parts 1, 3 and 4 of the majority’s opinion. I also agree with much of part 2. In particular, I agree with its conclusion that the Indiana property tax assessment system does not violate art. I, § 12, of the Indiana Constitution and that art. X, § 1, does not create a personal substantive right of uniformity and equality. I also concur that it is constitutionally permissible for the assessment system to apply different valuation methods for differing property classifications, including the assessment of some classifications based upon value in use rather than upon highest and best use.
However, I respectfully dissent from the court’s conclusion in part 2 that the cost schedules for buildings and other improvements used by the Tax Board at the time relevant to this litigation are unconstitutional. The schedules were created by taking cost information from a national commercial appraisal guide for developing replacement costs, depreciated values and insurable values of buildings and other improvements. The cost data in the guide was then taken into the field where it was tested and validated against known construction costs here in Indiana. Based on the field testing and validation, the cost data was then adjusted if necessary to reflect actual costs in Indiana. The resulting cost schedules were then applied to all classes of property. See Record at 1144^1147 (testimony of consultant who developed cost schedules); Respondent’s Exh. 5 (Marshall Valuation Service (valuation manual compiled by the firm of Marshall & Swift, Los Angeles, CA)). Contrary to the majority’s conclusion, this approach appears to me to be based on objectively verifiable data (national cost data, adjusted for actual Indiana costs), applied uniformly across property classifications. I see no violation of art. X, § 1, of the Indiana Constitution.
Although I disagree with the majority’s analysis of the cost schedules issue, I note that the Tax Board has advised us that its rules governing the next reassessment “will conceptually change Indiana’s assessing system by adding market-value concepts.” *1045Brief of Appellant at 9. For this reason, I see the issue as effectively moot.

. Both of these cases address the duty of the court to avoid deciding a constitutional question when the case can be resolved on other-than-constitutional grounds. I respectfully suggest that the issue of cost schedules — the only aspect of the property tax system found unconstitutional — could have been resolved on grounds of mootness or by applying administrative law principles.