Tax Appeals: 3 Keys to Leveraging Environmental Impacts

14 Nov Tax Appeals: 3 Keys to Leveraging Environmental Impacts

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Every dollar spent on environmental remediation diminishes your bottom line. Fortunately, as your environmental advocate, ESA uses strategies to mitigate the expense of environmental impacts. Tax appeals are one such strategy.

New Jersey tax law court decisions have clearly established that environmental impacts reduce property values. The impact type, extent, and severity must be properly examined when analyzing a property’s assessed value. Those factors will be used to support your successful tax appeal.

Mea Culpa

Does it make a difference if the property owner is fully responsible for generating the environmental impacts? For example, what if the property owner deliberately buried drums on their property to avoid the expense of proper disposal? On the one hand, this individual would have violated one or more environmental laws for which there would probably be legal repercussions. However, ironically, the property owner could still claim that their property value was reduced by their own actions, thereby making them eligible for a tax appeal.

But what if, while your property itself is free from environmental impacts,  there is an adjacent property that is highly impacted? In this case, your property is said to be “stigmatized” because it is situated next to a property with serious contamination. Stigma encompasses more than just the measurable contaminant levels. Perception, disruption, and fear all contribute to stigma. That’s why the mere perception of adjacent contamination may be sufficient to support a tax reduction.

Wetlands and Tax Appeals

Wetlands present another special situation. A wetlands ecologist must determine the ecological nature of your wetlands, its abundance, and what percentage of the property is taken up by wetlands. Depending on what they find, a property with wetlands may be eligible for a successful tax appeal.

Costs

Tax appeals are one of the few legal assignments that are routinely performed on a contingency basis. The new tax basis won via appeal is frozen for three years. Attorneys are typically compensated by taking one-third of the tax savings from the first year. The savings in years two and three belong to the property owner.

Final Thoughts on Tax Appeals

While a successful environmental tax appeal will always require some degree of input from an environmental consultant, ESA does not practice law, and the information provided above should be used as guidance only. Every case is different, and the deadline for property tax appeals is April 1. Therefore, if you believe you may have a case for a successful appeal, ESA advises that you consult immediately with a tax appeal attorney who specializes in environmental cases so they can determine if your case has merit and begin preparing your appeal.

See our Industry Insights section for more strategies on reducing the burden of environmental impacts.