“[I]f the taxpayer cannot establish that the assessment is incorrect or illegal, then the taxpayer is bound by it; the assessment stands as to him.”
How later courts described this case
- “[I]f the taxpayer cannot establish that the assessment is incorrect or illegal, then the taxpayer is bound by it; the assessment stands as to him.”
- The Superior Court’s “task is not to conduct a review of agency action. Rather, the court must make an independent valuation of the property on the basis of the evidence presented at trial.”
- the administrative review process “exists to give the taxpayer an informal and speedy opportunity to be heard before an assessment becomes final”
Written by the judges who cited it.
The opinion
FERREN, Associate Judge,
concurring:
I agree with the court’s disposition but write separately to make clear why — contrary to appellee’s contention — this court’s opinion in Wolf v. District of Columbia, 597 A.2d 1303 (D.C.1991) (Wolf I), does not dictate the result in appellee’s favor.
In Wolf I, a de novo proceeding, the taxpayer sought to prove that the 1986 assessment was too high and should remain at the 1983 level; the District sought to show that the 1986 assessment was too low and should be approximately $3 million higher than originally imposed because new information supplied by the taxpayer in its refund petition actually justified an even higher assessment. In taking this position, the District abandoned its original assessment only to the extent that the new information supplied by the taxpayer indicated a higher figure; the District never repudiated its original data or legal theory. The court sustained the original 1986 assessment, rejecting both the taxpayer’s and the District’s contentions. Thus, although the court upheld the original assessment, the proceeding was entirely de novo, with the District proving that the 1986 assessment should be at least at the originally issued level and the taxpayer failing to prove that it should be lower.
Contrary to the taxpayer’s contention in the present case, Wolf I does not stand for the proposition that the taxpayer can abort a de novo proceeding (absent a settlement) by agreeing mid-trial to the original assessment; indeed, in Wolf I, had the trial court agreed with the District’s position that the 1986 assessment should have been increased by $3 million, there is no indication that the taxpayer could have forced the District and the court to accept the original, lower assessment by the taxpayer’s simply “giving up” before judgment.