Property Tax Alert: Oklahoma

May 2007

The Oklahoma Supreme Court held that for property tax purposes, a deed transferring property to a limited liability company (LLC) is not a transfer, conveyance, or change of title when the transferrers are co-trustees and sole beneficiaries of a trust holding the property and are the only owners of the LLC. After the taxpayers transferred title to two properties to their wholly owned LLC, the county assessor increased the property tax value of each property by more than 5%, based on an exception to the constitutional limit of a 5% cap that allowed a greater increase if property was transferred, changed, or conveyed to another person. The court held that although legal title was transferred to the LLC, the equitable ownership of the property continued to be in the same people both before and after the transfer, thus the 5% cap applied.

Please contact Rash & Associates for more information.