Plaintiff-Appellant, the Northern Arapaho Tribe, sued various state and county officials in Wyoming, seeking an injunction against the state’s imposition of certain vehicle and excise taxes in an area that Appellant contended was Indian country. Appellant claimed that the state may not tax its members in Indian country, and that the Indian country status of the land was conclusively established by an earlier decision of the Wyoming Supreme Court. The district court dismissed the action with prejudice for failure to join a party under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(7) after determining, pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 19(b), that two absent entities (the Eastern Shoshone Tribe and the United States) were necessary parties who could not feasibly be joined, and in whose absence the action could not proceed. The district court also concluded that the Indian country status of the land had not been conclusively determined by the earlier state litigation. Appellant appealed both determinations. Upon review, the Tenth Circuit agreed with the lower court that the dismissal of the action was proper because the Eastern Shoshone was necessary party that could not feasibly be joined, but vacated the judgment and remanded with instructions to dismiss without prejudice. View "Northern Arapaho Tribe v. Harnsberger, et al" on Justia Law

The Estates of Barbara J. Nelson and Sharon M. Bracken challenged the efforts of the Washington State Department of Revenue (DOR) to treat them as having engaged in a present taxable transfer of assets that were actually transferred years ago by Ms. Nelson’s and Ms. Bracken’s late husbands’ estates. DOR relied on the legislature’s adoption in 2005 of definitions from the federal estate tax regime. Upon review, the Supreme Court held that DOR exceeded its authority in enacting regulations that allowed it to treat transfers completed by William Nelson and Jim Bracken years ago as if the estates had elected to defer state estate tax on the transfers, to be paid by their wives’ estates. DOR stood on a different footing than the United States Treasury; "DOR must rely on the asserted authority of our legislature to tax transfers years after the fact absent any deferral agreement by the taxpayer." The Court reversed the trial court and directed summary judgment be entered in favor of the Estates. View "In re Estate of Bracken" on Justia Law

Intervenor appealed from the district court's grant of summary judgment in favor of plaintiff. Plaintiff sued as surviving spouse of a same-sex couple that was married in Canada in 2007 and was resident in New York at the time of her spouse's death in 2009. Plaintiff was denied the benefit of the spousal deduction for federal estate taxes under 26 U.S.C. 2056(A) solely because Section 3 of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), 1 U.S.C. 7, defined the words "marriage" and "spouse" in federal law in a way that barred the IRS from recognizing plaintiff as a spouse or the couple as married. The court held that plaintiff had standing in this action; plaintiff's suit was not foreclosed by Baker v. Nelson; Section 3 of DOMA was subject to intermediate scrutiny under the factors enumerated in City of Cleburn v. Cleburn Living Center, and other cases; and the statute did not withstand that review because it violated equal protection and was therefore unconstitutional. View "Windsor v. United States" on Justia Law

In 2009, plaintiffs alleged that the defendants, in 1999 and 2000, marketed and sold to them investments, known as the 1999 Digital Options Strategy and the 2000 COINS Strategy, which were promoted as producing profits and reducing tax liabilities. Plaintiffs were charged substantial fees, but the promised benefits did not occur. The parties agree that the five-year statute of limitations for actions not otherwise provided for is applicable. The circuit court dismissed; the appellate court reversed and remanded. The Illinois Supreme Court affirmed, applying the “discovery rule” that a limitation period begins to run when the plaintiff knows or reasonably should know of the injury and its wrongful cause. The limitation period began to run when the IRS issued deficiency notices to plaintiffs in 2008. The complaint adequately alleged breach of fiduciary duty; that there was no basis for dismissing the claim as legally insufficient.View "Khan v. Deutsche Bank AG" on Justia Law

In this appeal, Progressive Plastics, Inc. (PPI) challenged the tax commissioner's decision to increase PPI's personal property tax assessments for 2004 and 2005. In amending the assessments, the commissioner recomputed the value of PPI's inventory based on the FIFO (first in, first out) accounting method rather than the LIFO (last in, first out) method, which PPI had used on its books. The board of tax appeals (BTA) affirmed the commissioner's amended assessments, finding that collateral estoppel barred PPI's FIFO/LIFO claim on the grounds that the issue had already been litigated and decided against PPI in the tax-year 2003 proceedings. The Supreme Court reversed, holding (1) the BTA incorrectly determined that collateral estoppel applied to PPI's appeal for the 2004 and 2005 tax years; and (2) the BTA erred by upholding the commissioner's assessments at issue here, as the substitution of FIFO for LIFO was impermissible under the circumstances of this case. View "Progressive Plastics, Inc. v. Testa" on Justia Law

The superior court denied the writ of mandamus in this case where a taxpayer requested that a school district to return "excess proceeds" collected pursuant to an educational sales and use tax approved by referendum. In 2001, voters in the Clarke County School District approved a one percent educational sales and use tax (ELOST) for a period of five years beginning immediately upon the expiration of an ELOST that had been approved in 1997. The purpose of the referendum was to provide funds to pay the cost of specified, authorized projects totaling $87,849,000. The total amount of taxes collected pursuant to the 2001 ELOST was $93,413,789, which was $5,564,789 more than the amount of taxes the school district intended to collect, but less than the amount the school district actually spent on the authorized projects. In 2006, voters again approved a one percent ELOST for an additional five years. In spite of these referendums and taxes, as of September 1, 2012, the school district had debt totaling at least $10,855,000. In denying the writ, the superior court found, inter alia, appellant did not show a clear legal right to relief because the school district did not violate the "excess proceeds" provision. The Supreme Court agreed with the superior court and affirmed the lower court's ruling. View "Marsh v. Clarke County Sch. Dist." on Justia Law

In 2010, the Commissioner issued four summonses to third-party financial institutions to determine whether the Miccosukee Tribe had complied with its federal withholding requirements during the period from 2006-2009. The Tribe petitioned to quash the summonses on the grounds of sovereign immunity, improper purpose, relevance, bad faith, and overbreadth. The district court denied those petitions. Because the court concluded that tribal sovereign immunity did not bar the issuance of these third-party summonses, the district court did not clearly err when it found that the summonses were issued for a proper purpose, and the Tribe lacked standing to challenge the summonses for overbreadth, the court affirmed the judgment. View "Miccosukee Tribe of Indians v. United States" on Justia Law

This case required the Supreme Court to decide whether a mortgage lienholder has standing to an agreed judgment between the property owner and the purchaser of the property owner's delinquent property tax liens. The court of appeals determined that the mortgage lienholder in this case (Appellee, Commonwealth Bank & Trust Company) did have standing to contest the agreed judgment between the property owner (Appellee, Teretha Murphy) and the owner of the owner's delinquent property tax liens (Appellant, Tax Ease Lien Investments 1, LLC). The Supreme Court affirmed, holding that Commonwealth Bank had standing to contest the monetary amount awarded in the agreed judgment. View "Tax Ease Lien Invs. 1, LLC v. Commonwealth Bank & Trust" on Justia Law

Plaintiffs, Doctors Eitan and Vered Sobel, owners of a medical office building in Rutland, appealed the superior court's grant of summary judgment for defendant, City of Rutland. Plaintiffs sued the City for damages, claiming the City Tax Assessor (the Assessor) was negligent in providing allegedly inaccurate property tax estimates on the proposed, but not yet built, office. Plaintiffs also sought to enjoin the City from enforcing the tax assessment on the office building ultimately constructed. On appeal, they argued that the court erred in concluding that their negligence claim was barred by municipal immunity and that they failed to establish equitable estoppel against the City. Upon review, the Supreme Court concluded that the City Assessor was immune from suit, and that plaintiffs could no establish estoppel with the facts of this case. Finding no error with the trial court's grant of summary judgment in favor of the City, the Supreme Court affirmed that decision. View "Sobel v. City of Rutland" on Justia Law

This case was before the Supreme Court on a property appraiser's appeal of the court of appeal's decision affirming a circuit court's grant of an ad valorem homestead tax exemption to David and Ana Andonie (the taxpayers) and declaration that a portion of Fla. Stat. 196.031(1) was invalid and unenforceable because the statutory provision limited the class of property owners otherwise eligible for ad valorem tax relief under Fla. Const. art. VII, 6(a). The Court affirmed the decision of the court of appeal to the extent it was consistent with its holding here, holding (1) the plain language of article VII, section 6(a) permits every owner of Florida real property to apply for and receive ad valorem tax relief where it is sufficiently demonstrated that the owner has maintained on that property the permanent residence of another legally or naturally dependent on the owner; and (2) the property appraiser here failed to sufficiently preserve for appellate review any argument regarding the sufficiency of the evidence introduced in the circuit court below, and the record sufficiently demonstrated that the taxpayers maintained on their property the permanent residence of their minor children, each of whom was legally and naturally dependent on the taxpayers. View "Garcia v. Andonie" on Justia Law