Court Opinion

ID: 9760399
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 00:52:14.191426+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:29:11.582097
License: Public Domain

On rehearing!. After the foregoing opinion was filed, the plaintiff moved for rehearing; the defendant in response sought clarification of procedural questions; and rehearing was granted. Arguments were particularly invited on the procedural questions.
Duncan, J.
Upon reconsideration of the opinion in the light of the plaintiff’s argument on rehearing, no reason is seen to depart from the views then held. The reargument makes it plain, if it was not previously, that the statutory interpretation advanced, by the plaintiff would make no allowance for the effect of increases in the assessed values of taxable property which doubtless resulted from the inflationary influences at work both before and after adoption of the 1953 amendment, and which must have been a substantial factor in prompting the amendment. The Legislature could not well have been oblivious to the fact that the 1911 statute operated to keep the valuation of water supply properties constant, while tax assessments were rising sharply.
If following the acquisition of water supply properties by the plaintiff, the true or market values of taxable properties in the town increased, quite apart from any increment of value attributable to improvement of such property, and thereby produced increased tax assessments, the amended statute requires that the original valuation of the water supply properties, based on historical assessments presumably proportional to other assessments at that time, shall be increased in proportion to any subsequent rise in assessed values of properties which remained taxable. And in this, as well as the original opinion, when reference to increases in the true and market value of taxable property is made, increases due to inflation or to the devaluation of the dollar are meant, and not increases resulting from development of the taxable property by new construction or the like. Obviously in dealing with a charge on water supply property upon which buildings and structures were to be disregarded in fixing a valuation, the Legislature did not intend to require such valuation to be raised because of increases in the assessed values of taxable properties attribut*333able solely to additions and improvements thereon. The foregoing opinion should not be construed to so require.
The plaintiff correctly points out that the 1953 amendment contains no express reference to “true value” as a standard to be employed by the Tax Commission in making a revaluation. But in this case, since true value was used as a standard in appraising property for taxation, it must necessarily play a part in revaluation of the plaintiff’s water supply property, in conformity to the amended statute. In order for the revaluation to be “proportional with the assessed value of other property in the town” (RSA 72:11), which is required by RSA 75:1 to be appraised at “full and true value,” the revaluation of water supply property must likewise be at true value, or in the same ratio thereto as assessed values, if the latter are not at true value.
Since in this case assessments were fixed at sixty per cent of true value, the charge based upon revaluation of non-rental water supply property was properly fixed at the same percentage of true value, “so that such payment will not exceed its proportion of the public charge.” RSA 72:11.
The defendant has raised the question of whether it is open to the plaintiff, in the pending proceedings relating to both taxes and charges in lieu of taxes for the years 1956 through 1958, to question the revaluation of 1955 upon which the latter charges are based. The 1953 amendment of RSA 72:11 did not purport to affect the right of the plaintiff to question the amount of any annual charge, nor did it purport to fix the manner of enforcing its rights and obligations with respect to such a charge, apart from any appeal from a revaluation by the Tax Commission as to which it prescribed a petition for abatement as the exclusive remedy. The plaintiff’s right, for example, to question the computation of the charge made upon the basis of a revaluation, and the procedures available for asserting that right remained unchanged.
Thus for the year 1956, the plaintiff could properly question in the pending proceeding the amount of the charge made for the year 1956 or later years, if based in part upon the valuation of property previously sold, or which became taxable prior to the year in question because yielding rent; or if the aggregate charge was disproportional, because computed by the selectmen according to a ratio to total true value differing from the ratio used in assessing taxes. However the plaintiff may not now attack the revaluation figures established by the Tax Commission in 1955, because it has failed to perfect its statutory appeal from that decision.
*334Since the plaintiff’s appeal relating to 1956 and later years brings in question taxes upon its taxable property as well as charges in lieu of taxes upon exempt water supply property, any issues relating to the latter class of property, except that of the validity of the Commission’s valuation, may properly be determined in the pending action. Keene v. Roxbury, 81 N. H. 332, 340; Lisbon District v. Lisbon, 85 N. H. 173, 176. But we do not read the latter case as standing for the proposition that a petition for abatement is necessarily the appropriate or exclusive method of determining the validity of the annual charge, as suggested by the plaintiff.
When however a municipality seeks to question a decision of the Tax Commission establishing a revaluation, a petition for abatement furnishes the only remedy, as stated in the former opinion. Procedural difficulties may arise under the amendment because of its adoption by reference, of tax abatement procedures. Cf. Manchester Housing Authority v. Fisk, 102 N. H. 280. And it may be as the plaintiff argues, that a more practicable course would have been afforded by enactment of provisions analogous to those of RSA 82:16-24 relating to appeals from decisions of the Tax Commission. This however is a legislative question, as to which either party is free to seek appropriate relief before the Legislature.
The order on rehearing is

Former result affirmed.

All concurred.
December 31, 1959.