Court Opinion

ID: 9793072
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 02:41:57.948654+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T08:03:13.615011
License: Public Domain

Fatzer, J.,
concurring: I am in accord that the judgment should be reversed. Under G. S. 1949, 79-2005 the written protest should clearly state the grounds with definite citations of law, statutes, or facts, upon which the taxpayer relies. Nothing less accomplishes the purpose of the statute. (Millhaubt v. McKee, 141 Kan. 181, 185, 40 P. 2d 363; Kansas Gas & Elec. Co. v. Dalton, 142 Kan. 59, *68346 P. 2d 27.) In the instant case the protest alleged that the assessment of plaintiffs’ property by the commission was 60 percent of its true or market value and was grossly excessive, discriminatory, arbitrary, illegal and void as a result of an adopted policy or practice of constructive fraud and discrimination by the State Commission of Revenue and Taxation against the plaintiffs and their property, for the reason that other taxable property in Cherokee County, Kansas, not assessed by the commission but by the county assessor, was assessed at not more than 21 percent of its true or market value. It was alleged the commission found by its assessment ratio studies over a period of more than 20 years that the average ratio of taxable assessment of true or market value of property in Cherokee County not assessed by the commission, was 21 percent.
The protest did not allege a conspiracy or concerted action between the commission and the county clerk of Cherokee County, or between other local assessors as was the case of C. B. & Q. Rld. Co. v. Comm’rs of Atchison Co., 54 Kan. 781, 39 Pac. 1039. However, under the tax system established by the legislature, the commission has been given general supervision and has broad plenary power over the system of taxation throughout the state. (G. S. 1949, 79-1401, et seq.)
Time does not permit a complete analysis of these statutes, but suffice it to say the commission is empowered with general supervision over the administration of the assessment and tax laws of the state, over township and city assessors, boards of county commissioners, county boards of equalization, and all other boards of levy and assessment to the end that all assessments of property, real, personal, and mixed, be made relatively just and uniform and at its true and cash market value. Thus, the commission is empowered following a study of assessment practices and procedures of any local assessor, pursuant to G. S. 1949, 79-1435, et. seq., to review such assessment and to either raise or lower the same pursuant to the information available to the commission through its study.
In the instant case the protest alleged that for more than 20 years, as a result of the commission s own assessment ratio studies, it was advised that the average rate of assessment of property to its true or market value in Cherokee County, which was not assessed by the commission, was 21 percent. Thus, for a period of years the com*684mission was advised by its own studies that the statutes of the state were being flagrantly disregarded by the local assessment officials in Cherokee County, but it failed to take corrective measures to require that the assessments be made at the true or market value of the property assessed; consequently, such failure, over such period of years, can justify no other conclusion than that of an adopted policy or practice of constructive fraud and discrimination against the plaintiffs and their property. The result is that the rate of assessment fixed by the commission at 60 percent of the true or market value of plaintiffs’ property, when applied to the rate of assessment of 21 percent of the true or market value of all other property located in that county and subject to the same tax levy, is illegal and the petition states a cause of action.
Schp,oeder, J., joins in the foregoing concurring opinion.