ADAMS ET AL., APPELLANTS, v. TESTA, TAX COMMR., APPELLEE.
No. 2016-0510
Supreme Court of Ohio
December 7, 2017
2017-Ohio-8854
DEWINE, J.
Taxation—Real-property valuation—R.C. 5703.14—Board of Tax Appeals had jurisdiction over landowners’ challenge to journal entries incorporating current agricultural-use values and to the rules providing for entries’ issuance—Board of Tax Appeals did not err in concluding that landowners failed to assert any grounds for concluding that challenged rules are unreasonable—Decision affirmed.
NOTICE
This slip opinion is subject to formal revision before it is published in an advance sheet of the Ohio Official Reports. Readers are requested to promptly notify the Reporter of Decisions, Supreme Court of Ohio, 65 South Front Street, Columbus, Ohio 43215, of any typographical or other formal errors in the opinion, in order that corrections may be made before the opinion is published.
SLIP OPINION NO. 2017-OHIO-8854
(Submitted June 6, 2017—Decided December 7, 2017.)
APPEAL from the Board of Tax Appeals, No. 2015-2244.
DEWINE, J.
{¶ 1} This is a companion case to Adams v. Testa, __ Ohio St.3d ___, 2017-Ohio-8853, __ N.E.3d ___ (“Adams I”), also decided today. At issue in both cases are the journal entries that set forth current agricultural-use values (“CAUVs”),
{¶ 2} The BTA determined that it did not have jurisdiction over the appeal and dismissed it. We disagree with the BTA regarding its jurisdiction. But because the landowners did not make any showing that the rules are unreasonable, it was still proper for the BTA to dismiss their appeal. We affirm the BTA‘s decision.
I. Background
{¶ 3} In Adams I, we explained CAUVs in some detail; we provide a brief overview here.
{¶ 4} In 2013 and 2014, the tax commissioner released CAUV tables that used a clearing cost of $500 per acre. In 2015, that amount was increased to $1,000 per acre. In the journal entry adopted in 2015, the tax commissioner ordered that the 2015 values were to be used by the 24 counties in which the county auditor was required to perform a sexennial reappraisal or triennial update for 2015. The other 64 counties were instructed to continue using the values established in 2013 and 2014, which had used the clearing cost of $500 per acre.
{¶ 5} The landowners challenged the tax commissioner‘s 2015 CAUV journal entry in two appeals before the BTA. In the first appeal, which is the subject of Adams I, they argued that the woodland had been overvalued because the commissioner had ignored evidence demonstrating that the woodland-clearing costs used in 2013, 2014, and 2015 were too low. In that proceeding, the landowners sought to appeal directly from the tax commissioner‘s 2015 journal entry under
{¶ 6} In their second appeal to the BTA, the landowners sought review of
{¶ 7} In dismissing the landowners’ rule-review appeal, the BTA stated that it did not have jurisdiction over the appeal. Clearly, this was incorrect.
{¶ 8} Despite its statement that it lacked jurisdiction over the landowners’ rule-review appeal, the BTA‘s decision makes clear that it did consider whether the landowners had met their burden to show that the challenged rules are unreasonable. In its decision, the BTA noted that “it is incumbent upon [the landowners], through the rule review challenge, to allege how the procedures for the Commissioner‘s determination of CAUV values, as set forth in the rules, are unreasonable.” BTA No. 2015-2244, 2016 Ohio Tax LEXIS 642, *6 (Mar. 31, 2016). The BTA concluded that the landowners had not met their burden because they had not addressed the reasonableness of the rules. We review this conclusion to determine whether it is “reasonable and lawful.”
A. The journal entries setting CAUVs are not rules
{¶ 9} We can quickly dispose of part of the landowners’ claims. The landowners argue, as they did in Adams I, that the CAUV journal entries are rules subject to the rulemaking requirements of
{¶ 10} We consider the landowners’ remaining challenges to
{¶ 11} The focus of the landowners’ appeal before the BTA was that the woodland-clearing costs used in the CAUVs are too low and that there is a lack of uniformity between the newly issued 2015 values and the 2013 and 2014 values still being used by 64 counties. They pointed to
{¶ 12} The landowners’ claim regarding
{¶ 13} The landowners’ appeal boils down to a challenge to the tax commissioner‘s application of the rules, rather than a challenge to the reasonableness of the rules themselves. Their quarrel is with the CAUVs, not the rules. Their rule-review challenge is without merit, but as we held in Adams I, they may challenge the CAUVs through an appeal under
IV. Conclusion
{¶ 14} Although the BTA was incorrect when it determined that it did not have jurisdiction over the landowners’ rule-review appeal, it correctly concluded that the landowners had failed to put forth any grounds for concluding that the rules they challenged are unreasonable. We therefore affirm the decision of the BTA.
Decision affirmed.
O’CONNOR, C.J., and KENNEDY, FRENCH, and O’NEILL, JJ., concur.
O’DONNELL, J., dissents, with an opinion joined by FISCHER, J.
ADAMS ET AL., APPELLANTS, v. TESTA, TAX COMMR., APPELLEE.
No. 2016-0510
Supreme Court of Ohio
December 7, 2017
O’DONNELL, J.
O’DONNELL, J., dissenting.
{¶ 15} Respectfully, I dissent.
{¶ 16} I would reverse the decision of the Board of Tax Appeals. In my view, the landowners did evidence that the CAUV journal entries are unreasonable because the tax commissioner failed to follow the rules in promulgating them, and
FISCHER, J., concurs in the foregoing opinion.
Van Kley & Walker, L.L.C., and Jack A. Van Kley, for appellants.
Michael DeWine, Attorney General, and Daniel W. Fausey, Daniel G. Kim, and Kody R. Teaford, Assistant Attorneys General, for appellee.
Chad A. Endsley, Leah F. Curtis, and Amy M. Milam, urging reversal for amicus curiae, Ohio Farm Bureau Federation.