Property Tax Alert: Wisconsin

October 2005

The owner of a high-tech manufacturing facility overcame the presumption of correctness of a Wisconsin property tax assessment because none of the comparable sales used by the Department of Revenue's assessor could be relied upon to value the facility. One of the assessor's comparable sales was a building with an entirely different use than the facility. Another comparable sale had a disputed sale price that was not proven by reliable evidence. Finally, the assessor could not use a previous sale-leaseback transaction of the facility as a comparable sale because the transaction deviated from the standard required finding that the sale was made under normal conditions at fair market value. Therefore, the price paid for the sale-leaseback transaction was not the fair market value price that could ordinarily be obtained for the facility.

Please contact Rash & Associates for more information.