SASSEEN v. STATE BOARD OF EQUALIZATION

SASSEEN v. STATE BOARD OF EQUALIZATION
1961 OK 152
363 P.2d 252
Case Number: 39337
Decided: 06/13/1961
Supreme Court of Oklahoma

E.N. SASSEEN, COUNTY ATTORNEY OF WASHITA COUNTY, OKLAHOMA, ACTING UNDER THE DIRECTION OF THE BOARD OF COUNTY COMMISSIONERS OF WASHITA COUNTY, OKLAHOMA, FOR THE ENTIRE TAXPAYING PUBLIC OF SAID COUNTY, PLAINTIFF IN ERROR, v.
STATE BOARD OF EQUALIZATION OF THE STATE OF OKLAHOMA, DEFENDANT IN ERROR.

Appeal from an order of the State Equalization Board.

Syllabus by the Court

¶0 1. Where both the rural and urban lands and improvements of a county are assessed for ad valorem taxation at a much lower percentage of their fair cash value than the limit fixed by the Oklahoma Constitution's Art. X, sec. 8, as amended, an order of the State Board of Equalization requiring an increase in the valuation of the rural property, without also requiring an increase in the valuation of the urban property, is not necessarily violative of the Oklahoma Constitution's Art. X, sec. 5, requiring taxes to be 'uniform upon the same class of subjects.'
2. The fact that, under the order, the county's rural property would have an assessed valuation constituting a greater percentage of its fair cash value, than the average of such percentages in other counties of the State before the order was entered, did not render said order void as in violation of the above cited constitution provision, as long as all valuations were within the limits fixed by said Constitution's Art. X, sec. 8, as amended.
3. The fact that the Board, in arriving at its decision, reflected in said order, considered a 'ratio study' made of the valuation situation during the year 1958, did not demonstrate that said Board erred, in the absence of any evidence showing that the facts and conclusions formulated therefrom were erroneous.
4. In view of the demonstration that taxpayers are not relegated to their county equalization boards for relief against erroneous orders of the State Board of Equalization, the claim, in the present case, that the latter Board's order was entered too late to afford them such relief, presented no cause for reversal.

Proceedings before the State Board of Equalization, in which, upon consideration of a complaint therein filed by the Board of County Commissioners of Washita County, Oklahoma, among others, said Board refused to modify or vacate its previous order directing increases in property valuations in the counties involved; and said Commissioners Board appeals. Affirmed.

E.N. Sasseen, County Atty., Washita County, Cordell, for plaintiff in error.

Mac Q. Williamson, Atty. Gen., Fred Hansen, First Asst. Atty. Gen., L.G. Hyden, Asst. Atty. Gen., Albert D. Lynn, Gen. Counsel, Oklahoma Tax Commission, Ed Armstrong, Asst. Counsel, Oklahoma Tax Commission, Oklahoma City, for defendant in error.

Otjen & Carter, by Frank Carter, Enid, for Oklahoma Farm Bureau, amicus curiae.

PER CURIAM.

¶1 Here, plaintiff in error, referred to as appellant, appeals from the same order of the State Board of Equalization appealed from in Causes Numbered 39321, 39323, Board of County Commissioners v. State Board of Equalization, Okl.,

¶2 The Oklahoma Tax Commission's ratio study, presented at the hearing before the State Board, indicated that urban land and improvements in Washita County was assessed at 15.20% of its fair cash value, and rural land and improvements in said County was assessed at 15.46% of its fair cash value.

¶3 The order appealed from effected no change in the assessed value of the urban property, but required that the rural valuations be increased 9.75%.

¶4 In its argument for reversal of the order, appellant adopts, with certain additions, the arguments advanced by the Board of County Commissioners of Canadian County, in Cause No. 39321, supra.

¶5 By way of adding to the arguments under "Proposition II" of the Canadian County Board's brief, to the effect that the order amounts to a "raise" rather than an "equalization", of taxes, appellant says that, since, under Title

¶6 Under said Proposition, appellant argues that the aforementioned ratio study does not reflect true rural values in Washita County because it covered only a part of the year 1958, when, because of the opening of the Clinton-Sherman Airforce Base and the extension of the boundaries of municipalities like Cordell, Sentinel and Dill City, rural tracts, adjacent to the cities and towns involved, sold at inflated prices, not because of their value as farm, or rural, land, but because of their location or proximity to such municipalities.

¶7 Appellant's statement that such lands were developed as subdivisions prompts the appellee board to remind us that, in the Tax Commission's ratio study, all platted lands outside municipal boundaries were not considered as "rural", but as "urban", land and improvements. We think appellant's argument ineffective also because, though it challenges the soundness of using county conveyance records to determine fair cash values (as was done in the ratio study) it cites no instance in which such use resulted in an incorrect conclusion. Nor does it represent that any of the rural properties used in the Washita County study, has, since 1958, had a lower fair cash value than it had at any time during that year. In appellant's reply brief, its counsel merely says: "We have not had an opportunity to examine the survey (ratio study) * * *".

¶8 In view of the foregoing, we have found nothing in the arguments appellant has added to those advanced in Cause No. 39321, supra, to necessitate any addition to what was said, and held, in that case, and Cause No. 39323, supra. Accordingly, the applicable portions of the syllabi and opinions in those cases are adopted as the syllabus and opinion in this case; and the time for the filing of a petition for rehearing is reduced to 10 days, as therein ordered.

¶9 WILLIAMS, C.J., BLACKBIRD, V.C.J., and WELCH, DAVISON, HALLEY, JOHNSON and BERRY, JJ., concur.

¶10 JOHNSON and BERRY, JJ., concur.

¶11 IRWIN, J., concurs specially.

¶12 JACKSON, J., dissents.

IRWIN, Justice (concurring specially).

I concur specially for the reasons set forth in Case No. 39,321, Board of County Commissioners of Canadian County, Oklahoma v. State Board of Equalization, Okl., 363, P.2d 242.