In the recently decided case of  Stinson v. Trimas Fasteners, Inc. the Tax Court of Indiana affirmed the decision of the Indiana Board of Tax Review finding in favor of the taxpayer’s claim of overvaluation for property tax purposes. 

Trimas initially challenged the 2002 assessment of their manufacturing facility. The PTABOA reduced the original assessment of $7,762,600 to $7,212,300. Trimas appealed the decision to the Indiana Board. 

Before the Indiana Board Trimas offered an appraisal estimating the value at $2,960,000. The assessor, on the other hand, offered an appraisal estimating the value at $8,000,000.  The large discrepancy in values resulted from, you guessed it, obsolescence. 

The Indiana Board found in favor of Trimas and reduced the assessment to $2,960,000. The assessor appealed to the Tax Court. 

At the heart of the case was the selection of the comparable sales used to value the subject property. Trimas’s expert relied on sales of vacant manufacturing properties, whereas the assessor relied on sales of occupied, owner/user manufacturing facilities. Then came the testimony. Trimas’s expert testified that: 

Trimas’s property suffered from external obsolescence because a loss of manufacturing jobs and companies within Indiana during the relevant time period saturated the market with manufacturing facilities for sale; that market, however, lacked buyers. (See Cert. Admin. R. at 273-74, 305, 827-28.) As a result, the sales prices for these facilities were low, particularly when compared to their respective replacement costs (i.e., the amount it would cost to construct facilities with similar utility). That market trend, noted Mitchell, affected what Trimas’s property would itself garner on the market: “[w]hen there’s an oversupply and a lack of demand, to remain competitive, if your neighbor drops their price, you have to drop your price.” (Cert. Admin. R. at 828.) 

The assessor claimed that vacant properties are not comparable to occupied properties and that the claim of external obsolescence was “absurd” because the comps relied upon were vacant and the Trimas property was occupied.  

In it’s decision the Tax Court stated: 

the Assessor misunderstands the concept of market value-in-use on its most basic level. Generally speaking, market value-in-use, as determined by objectively verifiable market data, is the value of a property for its use, not the value of its use. 

And there you have it. The taxpayer’s team was able to convince the deciding bodies that obsolescence existed. The assessor’s arguments, obviously, didn’t go over so well.

The California State Board of Equalization recently released a draft of the proposed Guidelines for Substantiating Additional Obsolescence for Personal Property and Fixtures as part of a project to assist county assessors’ staff in identifying and quantifying obsolescence for personal property tax valuation.

Although the proposed guidelines do not offer anything that can be considered groundbreaking, they do serve as an overview of the process for identifying and calculating extraordinary obsolescence.

In the recent case of Level 3 Communications, LLC v. Arizona Department of Revenue, the Arizona Court of Appeals affirmed the Arizona Tax Court’s decision rejecting the taxpayer’s claims of obsolescence regarding the valuation of personal property. 

The taxpayer’s contention was that the utility and salability of its property were impaired as a result of  overbuilding its network of fiber and conduit. 

The Court of Appeals agreed with the Tax Court’s opinion that obsolescence cannot be established by factors within the taxpayer’s control. In its decision the Tax Court states: 

“Taxpayer’s evidence did not satisfy its requirements because ‘the loss in value of the property was not caused by obsolescence.’ Rather, ‘Level 3 simply underestimated the future supply of fiber-optic capacity. Mere erroneous business judgment does not create obsolescence.’” 

The Tax Court relied heavily upon the Eurofresh case in arriving at its decision.