Court Opinion

ID: 9845795
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 03:28:27.90784+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:16:22.166964
License: Public Domain

STEWART, Justice,
concurring in the result.
Rio Algom Corp. v. San Juan County, 681 P.2d 184 (Utah 1984), held that § 59-5-4.5, as applied to county-assessed properties, was constitutional, even though that section provides for a valuation that is 20 percent less than the “gross” market value of a property. The constitutionality of that statute rested on the premise that the reduction in the assessment rate of county-assessed property was necessary to effectuate tax uniformity between inflated county-assessed properties and state-assessed properties. The basic cause of the disparity was that state assessments were made on the basis of formulae that were less responsive to inflation than the formu-lae used by county assessors.
The Amax properties in the instant case are state-assessed; however, they are not assessed on the basis of the net proceeds formula used to assess mines, but on the basis of a formula typically used by county assessors. As stated, the crux of Rio Al-gom was the fact that state-assessed properties did not shoulder a fair share of the tax burden vis-a-vis the county-assessed properties. That may or may not continue to be the case. Suffice it to say that the parties have not addressed the issue. Nevertheless, I agree that whether an assessment is made by a state assessor instead of a county assessor cannot by itself justify a different assessment. Since the disparity between state-assessed and county-assessed properties arose because of the different formulae used by state assessors for mines, utilities, railroads, etc., and perhaps because of administrative and enforcement reasons, it cannot now be demonstrated that the value of the petitioner’s parcels should be assessed at a higher rate than county-assessed parcels when they are valued on a market or cost-of-replacement method. For that reason, I concur in the result reached by the majority.
HOWE, Associate C.J., concurs in the concurring opinion of STEWART, J.