Commissioner of Taxation v. Crow Wing County

• Citation: 275 Minn. 9,144 N.W.2d 717
• Decision Date: 19 August 1966
• Docket Number: No. 39844,39844
• Parties: COMMISSIONER OF TAXATION, Respondent, v. CROW WING COUNTY, Relator.
• Court: Supreme Court of Minnesota (US)

Page 717

144 N.W.2d 717

275 Minn. 9

COMMISSIONER OF TAXATION, Respondent, v. CROW WING COUNTY, Relator.

No. 39844.

Supreme Court of Minnesota.

Aug. 19, 1966.

Syllabus by the Court

Where the commissioner of taxation, acting as the state board of equalization, enters an order increasing the assessed valuation of real estate in a given county, appeal to the Tax Court of the State of Minnesota is not available to the county where the real estate is located under Minn.St. 271.06, subd. 1.

Carl E. Erickson, County Atty., Brainerd, for relator.

Robert W. Mattson, Atty. Gen., Jerome J. Sicora, Asst. Atty. Gen., St. Paul, for respondent.

OPINION

SHERAN, Justice.

Certiorari to review an order of the Tax Court.

The commissioner of taxation is authorized under Minn.St. 270.11, subd. 1, and 270.12 ¹ to act as the state board of equalization. In so doing he performs some of the same functions that he has authority to perform as commissioner under § 270.11, subd. 6. ²

On November 13, 1964, the commissioner, acting as the state board of equalization, made an order which so far as is relevant here increased by 10 percent the assessed valuations of all buildings except public utility property in a number of assessment districts in Crow Wing County. The county appealed to the Board of Tax Appeals (now designated Tax Court), contending that this increase in assessed valuation was arbitrary and capricious and resulted in an over-valuation.

The commissioner moved to strike this portion of the appeal as being outside of the jurisdiction of the Tax Court. The motion was granted because of our decision in Village of Tonka Bay v. Commissioner of Taxation, 242 Minn. 23, 64 N.W.2d 3.

There we said that an order of the commissioner, sitting as the board of equalization, increasing the valuation of all real estate located within the village was not an 'official order of the commissioner of taxation.' As a result we held the order was not appealable to the Board of Tax Appeals, its jurisdiction being limited under § 271.06, subd. 1, to appeals--

'* * * from any official order of the commissioner of taxation respecting any tax, fee, or assessment, or any matter pertaining thereto, by any person directly interested therein or affected thereby, or by any political subdivision of the state, directly or indirectly, interested therein or affected thereby, * * *.'

We recognized that this construction of the statute allowed the commissioner to determine subjectively the appealability of his order merely by deciding the capacity in which he would issue it, but said that this incongruity was a matter for legislative consideration and action.

Since the legislature has not responded to this suggestion, Crow Wing County asks as to overrule the Village of Tonka Bay decision because of the inequity that results from the possession by a single administrator of the power to deny access to review of his own orders.

We recognize that serious questions of due process and equal protection might be presented by the application of our Village of Tonka Bay decision to an appeal by taxpayers from an order such as the present one. In such a case it could be argued that the denial of an appeal to the Tax Court gives the commissioner the power for all practical purposes to prevent judicial review of his order merely by designating the capacity in which he made it. ³ Of course, the taxpayer has another remedy to obtain review. He can petition the district court for relief under § 278.01. ⁴ But this remedy may be illusory where the increase in the assessment upon the tax liability of an individual landowner is too slight to justify the cost of individual action.

This argument has been made before in connection with what appears to be a continuous effort to discover a practical and satisfactory means of reviewing changes in assessments. We have denied the right to seek a review of the fairness or equality of an assessment by an action to enjoin the collection of the tax; ⁵ as a defense under § 279.15 to delinquent tax proceedings; ⁶ by a representative action under § 275.26; ⁷ and by a declaratory judgment action under § 555.01, ⁸ in each case holding that the remedy under § 278.01 is adequate and precludes the others. Similarly, in Village of Edina v. Joseph, 264 Minn. 84, 119 N.W.2d 809, we held that a class suit was not available in a proceeding under § 429.081 ⁹ to review special assessments for local improvements.

However, we need not decide the constitutional problems nor reexamine the soundness of the Village of Tonka Bay decision here. We hold that Crow Wing County is not directly or indirectly interested in the present order within the meaning of § 271.06, subd. 1, and thus does not have standing to appeal from it. In our view the interest required to give standing to a political subdivision must be one predicated upon some adverse effect upon the governmental unit. The county government is not adversely affected by increases in assessed valuations since this increases the revenue of the county. The county is not a proper party to represent the taxpayers in this situation because of its conflicting interests and duties. If a judgment were obtained by the county, it could not be binding on the landowners. While it would be desirable to test the order involved in a single proceeding, since it was made on a general rather than an individual basis, appeal by the county is not a permissible procedure for achieving that result.

Affirmed.

1 Minn.St. 270.11, subd. 1, provides: 'The commissioner of taxation shall have and exercise all the rights, powers and authority by law vested in the state board of equalization, which board of equalization is hereby continued, with full power and authority to review, modify,...