CopyCited 4 times | Published | Florida 3rd District Court of Appeal
...which should not have been dismissed with prejudice on a motion to dismiss.
Before July 1, 2011, a Miami-Dade County taxpayer was not required to pay
any taxes in order to challenge an ad valorem tax assessment. The Florida
Legislature then enacted section 194.014, Florida Statutes (2011), effective July
2011, which required taxpayers filing petitions to challenge a tax assessment to
pre-pay at least 75% of the ad valorem taxes they were challenging. Section
194.014(1)(a), Fla....
...the ad valorem taxes… .”
2
The section further provided that a taxpayer is entitled to receive interest on the
pre-paid ad valorem taxes that were due, if a taxpayer succeeded in obtaining a
reduction of an assessment. Section 194.014(2), Fla....
...accrues interest at the rate of 12 percent per year… until…paid. If the
value adjustment board determines that a refund is due, the overpaid
amount accrues at the rate of 12 percent per year…until a refund is
due. [1]
When section 194.014 became effective, Fernando Casamayor was the
Miami-Dade tax collector....
...After taxpayers filed petitions, Casamayor remitted
taxpayers 12% interest on refunds resulting from assessment reductions. The
refunds were triggered by a ruling of the Value Adjustment Board (“VAB”) special
magistrate after a hearing, as well as a reduction in assessments that resulted from
1Section 194.014 was amended in 2016, effective July 1, 2016, and subsection (2)
of the statute currently reads:
(2) If the value adjustment board or the property appraiser determines that the
petitioner owes ad valorem taxes in excess of the amount...
...ual to the bank prime loan rate on July 1, or
the first business day thereafter if July 1 is a Saturday, Sunday, or legal holiday, of
the tax year, beginning on the date the taxes became delinquent pursuant to s.
197.333 until a refund is paid. …
§
194.014, Fla....
...3d 178, 179
(Fla. 3d DCA 2010). The trial court must construe all reasonable inferences in
favor of the pleader. Id. Statutory construction is also reviewed de novo. Zingale v.
Powell,
885 So. 2d 277, 280 (Fla. 2004).
The taxpayers argue that section
194.014 entitled the interest-owed
taxpayers to interest on all their appeals of overpayment of ad valorem taxes, and
that section
194.014 does not state that a condition precedent to the interest-owed
taxpayers’ entitlement is the VAB’s issuance of a written “decision” granting a
taxpayer’s petition....
...Casamayor) had already
made to the taxpayers as a result of a reduction in the taxpayers’ assessments after
they filed petitions challenging their tax assessments.
We find that the taxpayers base their claims on a valid interpretation of
section 194.014. Section 194.014(1)(a), states that taxpayers must file petitions and
pay 75% of their ad valorem taxes to be eligible to receive 12% interest on all
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overpaid amounts. Before it was amended in 2016, section 194.014(2) further
stated, “[i]f the value adjustment board determines that a refund is due.…”
However, section 194.014 does not define what action constitutes a VAB
“determination” for purposes of triggering an entitlement to interest....
...it is the VAB’s action of
certifying the final tax roll that determines the assessments of each property. This
then determines the amount of taxes that the tax collector is entitled to collect and
the taxpayers’ entitlement to interest under section 194.014.
In addition, the final tax roll requires taxpayers to take certain steps to
collect their reimbursement and includes assessments that are reduced by the
taxpayers’ written agreements with the VAB and the property appraiser....
...e used and adopted this interpretation.
We agree with the taxpayers that the trial court erred in dismissing their lawsuit
against the tax collector with prejudice on a motion to dismiss because their claims
are based on a valid interpretation of section 194.014.
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Whether the tax collector has a right or duty to claw back overpayments
depends on an interpretation of statutory provisions and reasonable inferences
drawn from those provisions....
...erty was subject to determination
by the trial court, as were the clawback taxpayers’ claims in Counts II, III, V, and
VI, and the relevant counts should not have been dismissed.2
2 The current tax collector contends that the 2016 amendment to section
194.014(2) supports the trial court’s determination that the prior version of the
statute does not entitle taxpayers to interest if they obtained a reduction of their
assessments by executing a Petition Withdrawal Form....
...The amended statute,
effective July 1, 2016, now states, in pertinent part: “If the value adjustment board
or the property appraiser determines that a refund is due, the overpaid amount
accrues interest at an annual percentage rate equal to the bank prime loan rate on
July 1, . . . until a refund is paid.”
§ 194.014(2), Fla....
...these settlements or Petition Withdrawal Agreements are a determination that a
refund is due under the amended statute, then it stands that they are also a
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Finding that the taxpayers’ claims are based on a valid interpretation of
section 194.014, we now turn to whether the taxpayers pled factual allegations to
satisfy each of the elements of their claims. In Count I of the Second Amended
Complaint, the interest-owed taxpayers sought a declaratory judgment from the
trial court that under section 194.014(2), “any taxpayer who receives a refund due
to a reduction in his, her or its assessment as a result of filing a Petition is entitled
to statutory interest thereon, regardless of whether a formal VAB hearing
occurred.” In Count...
...(finding a party is entitled to a declaration when that party pleads
the necessary factual allegations for each element of a declaratory judgment
claim).
However, the trial court dismissed the declaratory judgment claims with
prejudice and also declared what the rights of the taxpayers were under section
194.014....
