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The Indiana Tax Court will hold oral arguments next week in a case in which the Lake County Assessor’s Office is challenging the Indiana Board of Tax Review’s adjustments on an industrial landowner’s property appraisal.
Oral arguments will be held at 1:30 p.m. Dec. 20 in the Court of Appeals Courtroom in the Statehouse. The case is Lake County Assessor v. O’Day Holdings, LLC, 23T-TA-15.
According to the Court of Appeals, O’Day Holdings LLC owns a facility in Hammond that is used for industrial manufacturing and storage.
Believing its property had been over-assessed during the 2014, 2015, and 2018 through 2020 tax years, O’Day Holdings filed several appeals — first with the Lake County Property Tax Assessment Board of Appeals and then with the Indiana Board of Tax Review.
During the tax review board proceedings, the parties presented competing appraisals to substantiate their requested valuations of the property.
The tax review boards found O’Day Holdings’ appraisal more persuasive than the Lake County assessor’s appraisal, despite the former’s likely inclusion of personal property.
Consequently, the Indiana board adjusted O’Day Holdings’ assessments for the years 2014 and 2015, reducing them from $1,375,600 and $1,397,000, respectively, to $870,000 for each year. Additionally, the assessments for 2018, 2019 and 2020 were all reduced to $800,000 each.
A petition for appeal filed in June by the assessor’s office in the Indiana Tax Court described the tax review board’s determination as “contrary to law, arbitrary and capricious, unsupported by substantial evidence, and an abuse of discretion.”
On appeal, the assessor contended that the tax review board’s final determination must be reversed because O’Day Holdings failed to show its appraisal proved a “correct” or “accurate” value, given its inclusion of an unspecified amount of personal property.
O’Day provided the expert testimony of Jerry Kulik, who completed an appraisal of the subject property as of the dates under appeal.
The assessor’s office alleged that the burden was on O’Day to prove the assessment was incorrect and prove what the correct assessment should have been.
The office also alleged the tax review board found multiple issues with the Kulik appraisal.
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