Court Opinion

ID: 9583336
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 22:37:49.21377+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:38:57.526086
License: Public Domain

NEELY, Chief Justice,
dissenting:
In this case the county assessor, the board of equalization and review, and the Circuit Court of Randolph County acted in accordance with our tax law as it was then written by a majority of this Court. The county assessor valued the Westvaco Corporation’s timberland, not on its purchase price, but rather on the 1965 appraisal of the property by the State Tax Commissioner. This was upheld by the board of equalization and review. The circuit court, studying this Court’s judgments and reading the West Virginia statutes, quietly and confidently affirmed the board.
Let us consider this Court’s own language in Tug Valley Recovery Center, Inc. v. Mingo County Commission, 164 W.Va. 94, 261 S.E.2d 165 (1979). In that case, we considered “the problems inherent in setting the proper amount of tax to be paid on any given parcel of land.” 164 W.Va. at 108, 261 S.E.2d at 173. Noting that such problems are peculiarly technical and complex, we discovered, to our relief, that our task is alleviated by W.Va.Code 18-9A-11(a) [1981]. In Tug Valley Recovery Center, Inc., supra, we indicated that, initially, the Tax Commissioner “is to make an appraisal of all mineral and surface estates in West Virginia, and that appraisal is to serve as the basis for determining true and actual value for all assessment purposes.” 164 W.Va. at 108, 261 S.E.2d at 173 [Emphasis in the original]. We continued:
Therefore, once the Tax Commissioner’s appraisal has been made, the duty of the circuit court is clear and the taking of further evidence would not be necessary. It is incumbent upon the circuit court, as it would be upon the county commission and the assessor, to set the assessed value of all parcels of land at the amount established by the State Tax Commissioner. Tug Valley Recovery Center, Inc., 164 W.Va. at 108, 261 S.E.2d at 173.
Today, however, the majority instructs us that Tug Valley Recovery Center, Inc., supra, signifies only that the local assessor may not ignore the Tax Commissioner’s appraisal and that “an assessor cannot establish a value for real property that is below the State Tax Commissioner’s appraisal” [emphasis added]. The majority now informs us that the price paid for property “is relevant evidence of its true and actual value ...” and “may not be rejected in favor of an old Tax Commissioner’s appraisal.” [Query: How old must the Tax Commissioner or his appraisal be?] Apparently an assessor may now appraise real property at a value above that determined by the State Tax Commissioner, perhaps even when that same, property has declined in value over the years.
Previously, this Court has held that a taxpayer’s objection to any assessment can be sustained only by the presentation of competent evidence by experts such as qualified appraisers. “The objecting party, whether it be the taxpayer, the tax commissioner or another third party, must show by a preponderance of the evidence that the assessment is incorrect.” Syl.Pt., Killen v. Logan County Commission, 170 W.Va. 602, 295 S.E.2d 689 (1982). But in the case before us the majority turns a blind eye to its own directive. No neutral, independent appraiser offered any testimony at all to show that the assessment was “incorrect.”
*380Syllabus point one gives another fine twist to the majority’s veneration for precedent. W. Va. Const, art. X, § 1 states that taxation generally “shall be equal and uniform throughout the State ...” In Syllabus Point 1 of Re: The Assessment of Shares of Stock of the Kanawha Valley Bank, 144 W.Va. 346, 109 S.E.2d 649 (1959), this Court found the constitutional provision to be clear and unambiguous and to prohibit “the taxing of any one species of property higher than any other species of equal value.” In subsequent cases, this Court held that unintentional, sporadic deviations were insufficient to reverse an assessment, Bankers Pocahontas Coal Company v. County Court, 135 W.Va. 174, 62 S.E.2d 801 (1950) and, recently, that intentional discrimination against a taxpayer could never excuse a willfully contrived deviation, Syllabus Point 3 Matter of U.S. Steel Corp., 165 W.Va. 373, 268 S.E.2d 128 (1980).
The majority now insists that an aggrieved taxpayer, who finds his neighbors taxed less heavily than himself, is afforded no protection by the equal and uniform provision of W. Va. Const, art. X, § 1, unless he can satisfy the Court that the “undervaluation” of his neighbors “was intentional and systematic.” The Court demanding such subjective omniscience, surgically eviscerates the equal and uniform requirement of our Constitution. Our equal and uniform provision governing taxes is sub-species of the equal protection clause. It guarantees that “insular minorities” like the business taxpayer in the case before us will not be taxed at a high rate because of limited political influence while all those with political clout pay little. Where taxes are equal and uniform everyone has an interest in efficiency and economy in government. One’s compelling interest in such desirable social goals pales, however, whenever someone else is paying the bill.
More to the point in this case, however, is the fact that the record clearly reflects that all property in Randolph County is more or less appraised in accord with the tax commissioner’s 1965 evaluation. If this property is evaluated by a different means — if the Court in this one specific case rejects application of an equal and uniform standard — then we will have reversed the role that this Court traditionally plays in tax cases. Although in all previous decades of our history this Court has been a guarantor of equality and uniformity, we are now, by this case, the proponents of deviation from equality and uniformity.
Although I am apparently eccentric in this regard, I believe that there is still some value in consistency and continuity. These are goals that are well served by cherishing the doctrine of stare decisis. In my dissent in Killen v. Logan County Commission, 170 W.Va. 602, 295 S.E.2d 689, 710-16 (1982), I argued that stare de-cisis not only protects reliance interests “but also that the doctrine helps provide a stable environment in which the institutions which apply laws can grow and change gradually.” 170 W.Va. at 624, 295 S.E.2d at 712.
If the Court deems it necessary to disregard precedent, let it boldly overrule a prior decision and not, with passionate intensity, manoeuvre interstitially among the lines of cases written only yesterday. In conclusion, I am reminded of Lord Holt’s protest, in 1704: “... these scrambling reports ... will make us appear to posterity for a parcel of blockheads.” Slayter v. May, 2 Ld.Raym. 1072 [1704].