General Motors Corp. v. City of Linden

17 N.J. Tax 1
CourtNew Jersey Tax Court
DecidedJanuary 4, 1996
StatusPublished
Cited by4 cases

This text of 17 N.J. Tax 1 (General Motors Corp. v. City of Linden) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering New Jersey Tax Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
General Motors Corp. v. City of Linden, 17 N.J. Tax 1 (N.J. Super. Ct. 1996).

Opinion

DOUGHERTY, J.T.C.

Procedural History:

General Motors Corporation (“Taxpayer”) filed complaints challenging assessments for tax years 1983, 1984 and 1985. The City of Linden (the “City”) filed counterclaims in each of the three years. The matters were consolidated and tried in the Tax Court where a true value was determined which resulted in an increase in the assessments for all years. General Motors Corp. v. Linden, 12 N.J.Tax 24 (Tax 1991). On Taxpayer’s appeal, the Appellate Division reversed and remanded. General Motors Corp. v. City of Linden, 13 N.J.Tax 324 (App.Div.1993). It concluded the Supreme Court’s decision in Ford Motor Co. v. Edison Tp., 127 N.J. 290, 604 A.2d 580 (1992), and the Legislature’s enactment of the Business Retention Act, L.1992, c. 24 (which included amendments to N.J.S.A. 54:4-1 and N.J.S.A. 54:4-1.12), (the “Act”) each occurring subsequent to the decision, “so seriously undermined the conceptual basis of the Tax Court’s reasoning as to require full reconsideration____” General Motors, supra, 13 N.J.Tax at 325. The Appellate Division directed this court on remand, to consider valuation “in accordance with [the property’s] ... highest and best [4]*4use as a going-concern automobile assembly plant or for other ‘kindred use as a heavy-manufacturing facility”’. Id. at 326. Citing the trial court’s reliance on Texas Eastern Transmission Corp. v. Div. of Taxation, 11 N.J.Tax 198 (Tax 1990), which the Act was designed to reverse, it further directed this court to consider: (1) the provisions of the Act in making its Cost Approach evaluation, suggesting that “some, if not all, of the fitups in this case constitute excluded personal property” under N.J.S.A 54:4-lb; and (2) “in the first instance ... in the context of a fully developed record” ... the implications of the Act upon the Market Data approach to valuation. General Motors, supra, 13 N.J.Tax at 328-29.

In the meantime, complaints and counterclaims were filed by Taxpayer and the City, for tax years 1986 through 1994. Years 1983 through 1994 are now before this court and have been consolidated for purposes of case management.

In this motion the City of Linden seeks partial summary judgment that N.J.S.A 54:4-1b (providing an exemption firom real property taxation for certain “machinery, apparatus and equipment”), N.J.S.A 54:4-1.12 (providing “notwithstanding the provisions of R.S. 54:4-1, a storage tank having a capacity more than 30,000 gallons is deemed to be real property----”), and N.J.S.A 54:4-1.16 (the effective date provisions of the Act, which the City refers to as the “phase in provisions”) violates on its face the “Uniformity Clause” of the New Jersey Constitution, N.J. Const. (1947), art. VIII, § 1, f 1(a) and must be stricken from the law.

N.J.S.A 54:4-1b and 54:4-1.16 were added to the statute as part of the Act. N.J.S.A. 54:4-1.12, originally enacted in 1986, L.1986, c. 117, § 3, was amended the Act.

On filing its motion, the City notified Deborah T. Poritz, Attorney General of New Jersey, as required by R. 4:28-4(a), who then moved on behalf of the State of New Jersey (the “State”) to intervene and defend the constitutionality of the challenged statutory provisions. A brief in support of the State’s motion and in opposition to the City’s motion was filed by the State. Neither Taxpayer nor the City opposed the Attorney General’s motion to [5]*5intervene and at the commencement of oral argument on the City’s motion the court ruled from the bench that the State was entitled to intervene under R. 4:28-4(d). The State thereafter participated in the argument of this motion.

For the reasons which follow, it is concluded that N.J.S.A. 54:4-1b does violate on its face the restraints imposed upon the taxation of real property by the Uniformity Clause. Because of this conclusion it is not necessary to reach the City’s challenge to the “phase in” provisions of N.J.S.A 54:4-1.16 as it now has no context in which to apply. As to N.J.S.A 54:4-1.12, it is determined that the provision is not facially defective. The City’s motion is granted as to N.J.S.A 54:4-1b, denied as to N.J.S.A. 54:4-1.12 and moot as to N.J.S.A 54:4-1.16.

I. Issue: Is N.J.S.A 54:4-lb violative on its face of the Uniformity Clause?

The City of Linden says that N.J.S.A. 54:4-1b as amended by the Act violates the Uniformity Clause. This is so, Linden says, because, “[t]he broadened definition of personalty espoused by [the Act] ..., with the resultant reclassification of certain fixtures from real property to personal property and the consequent removal of those fixtures from local property taxation ... fail[s] the litmus test of the Uniformity Clause, which requires that all real property ... be assessed according to the same standard of value ... [and be] taxed at the general rate of the taxing district____” Chevron USA, Inc. v. City of Perth Amboy, 9 N.J.Tax 205, 250 (Tax 1987) (Hopkins, J.T.C., concurring opinion). For all of the reasons which follow, this court agrees that N.J.SA 54:4-1b’s exemption is unconstitutional. New Jersey State League of Municipalities v. Kimmelman, 105 N.J. 422, 436, 522 A.2d 430 (1987) (“we cannot conclude that the ... Legislature could achieve, by the exemption clause, what could not be done under the constitutional restraints imposed upon it Lby the Uniformity Clause]”); Switz v. Kingsley, 37 N.J. 566, 585,182 A.2d 841 (1962) (“[w]e need not delay to consider the suggestion that this provision creates but a ‘rebuttable’ presumption, or that the Legislature had [6]*6in mind such ‘... value’ as could not be considered in any event.”); New Jersey Turnpike Auth. v. Washington Tp., 16 N.J. 38, 45,106 A.2d 4 (1954) (“classification^] ... for exemption ... based ... upon the status or vocation or avocation of [the owners] ... [are] without constitutional warrant.”).

N.J.S.A 54:4-1 imposes a tax upon limited items of personal property and defines personal property taxable as follows:

Ail property real and personal within the jurisdiction of this state, not expressly . exempted from taxation or expressly excluded from the operation of this chapter shall be subject to taxation annually____ Such properly shall be valued and assessed at the taxable value prescribed by law____ Personal property taxable under this chapter shall include, however, only the machinery, apparatus or equipment of a petroleum refinery that is directly used to manufacture petroleum products____and the tangible goods and chattels, exclusive of inventories, used in business of local exchanges telephone, telegraph and messenger systems____
[emphasis added]

It likewise imposes a tax upon real property and defines real property taxable as:

Real property taxable ...

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17 N.J. Tax 1, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/general-motors-corp-v-city-of-linden-njtaxct-1996.