Court Opinion

ID: 9785199
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-30 21:08:50.180766+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:36:10.373106
License: Public Domain

DISSENTING OPINION BY
Senior Judge FRIEDMAN.
I respectfully dissent. The majority holds that, where property is subject to a long-term commercial lease, the value of the property for tax purposes depends on whether the taxpayer is the owner or the lessee of the property. For the following reasons, I cannot agree that the identity of the taxpayer dictates a property’s value for tax purposes.
In re Appeal of Marple Springfield Center, Inc., 530 Pa. 122, 125, 607 A.2d 708, 709 (1992) (emphasis added), our Supreme Court stated:
The statutory foundation for tax assessments is ... fail' market value: [Tjhe General County Assessment Law[1] requires that taxable property be valued “according to the actual value thereof, and at such rates and prices for which the same would separately bona fide sell.” 72 P.S. § 5020-402. We have interpreted “actual value” to mean “a price which a purchaser, willing but not obliged to buy, would pay an owner, willing but not obliged to sell, taking into consideration all uses to which the property is adapted and might in reason be applied.”
Whether the taxpayer is the owner or a lessee, the value of property subject to a long-term commercial lease, for tax purposes, is the price that a willing buyer would pay to the owner of the property. This price would not change where the taxpayer happens to be the lessee.
In Tech One Associates v. Board of Property Assessment, Appeals and Review, 974 A.2d 1225 (Pa.Cmwlth.2009) (en banc), appeal granted, 607 Pa. 323, 6 A.3d *629499 (2010), property was subject to a long-term commercial lease, but the majority of this court declined to follow Marple Springfield because the taxpayer was the lessee, not the owner. In his dissent, Judge McGinley, joined by Judge Leavitt, pointed out that the proper inquiry in any valuation is what a prospective buyer would pay the owner for the property. Tech One Associates, 974 A.2d at 1232 (McGinley, J., dissenting).
Because I agree with the dissenting view of Judge McGinley and Judge Leavitt in Tech One, I would reverse.

1. Act of May 22, 1933, P.L. 853, as amended, 72 P.S. § 5020-1- § 5020-602.