Court Opinion

ID: 9542625
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 16:36:46.120822+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:08:29.575126
License: Public Domain

DISSENTING OPINION OF
KIDWELL, J.,
WITH WHOM RICHARDSON, C.J., JOINS
I respectfully dissent.
The questions raised in this case involve the relationship between the dedication provisions and the home exemption provisions of the real property tax law.
HRS § 246-12 provides that, with certain limitations, the owner of any parcel of land may “dedicate his land for a specific ranching or other agricultural use” and “have his land assessed at its value in such use” for real property tax purposes. Upon approval by the director of taxation of a petition to so dedicate a parcel of land, the owner is deemed to have forfeited for a minimum period any right to change the use of his land to a use other than agriculture, subject to provisions for cancellation. Except to provide that dedicated land shall be assessed at its value in the dedicated use, § 246-12 does not expressly provide with respect to its effect upon other provisions of the real property tax law of which it forms a part.
HRS § 246-26 provides that real property owned and occupied only as the “home” of a taxpayer shall be exempt from property taxes to the extent of a stated portion of its assessed value (the “home exemption”). Section 246-27 defines, for the purposes of the home exemption, the word “home” as including “the entire homestead when it is occupied by the taxpayer as such.” It is conceded that the taxpayer’s entire parcel of 2.50 acres would constitute his “homestead” if it were not for the dedication of 2.25 acres thereof.
*500The majority concludes that the dedication excluded any possibility of the use of the dedicated portion of the taxpayer’s parcel as his home, as a necessary consequence of the limitation of the use of the dedicated land to agriculture. But this conclusion ignores the fact that actual use of the dedicated land for agricultural purposes prior to the dedicaT tion did not deprive the taxpayer of the home exemption as to the entire parcel. HRS § 246-26(b) provides:
“The use of ... a portion of real property ... in connection with the planting and growing for commercial purposes ... of flowers, plants, or foliage, shall not affect the exemptions provided for by this section.”
We start with the proposition, which is not contested, that the entire 2.50 acre parcel ,constituted the taxpayer’s “homestead”, as to the whole of which he was entitled to the home exemption, prior to the dedication. Had the taxpayer devoted the 2.25 acres to the agricultural uses mentioned in HRS § 246-26(b), without dedication, he would have continued to enjoy his home exemption with respect to the entire 2.50 acre homestead. I agree with the majority that a legal fiction of agricultural use was created by the dedication. However, I can find no rationale upon which the fictional agricultural use can be given more significance in the present context than would be given to actual use of the land for agriculture. I would , view the dedication as affecting the application of the home exemption to the taxpayer’s homestead to no greater extent than actual planting and cultivation of flowers, plants or foliage on the same land. In both circumstances, the entire homestead should continue to be subject to the home exemption, as the result of HRS § 246-26(b).
The majority concludes that only the dedication prevents inclusion of the whole of the taxpayer’s parcel in the “homestead” with respect to which he is entitled to the home exemption. Since I find no justification in the statutory language for giving dedication this effect, I would reverse the judgment of the tax appeal court.