In Prang v. Amen, the Supreme Court today holds a family corporation’s transfer of two supermarkets to one of its shareholders, a revocable trust, could not escape a property reassessment that led to higher property taxes.
The court’s unanimous opinion by Justice Kelli Evans concludes that there was a reassessment-triggering change in ownership under statutes implementing Proposition 13 limitations on property tax increases because, even though the trust held all the corporation’s voting stock, there was also a small number of individual shareholders who held nonvoting stock. The court rejected the argument that only the voting stock should be considered, which would have made the corporation-to-trust transfer not an ownership change.
The court sides with the county assessor, not the county assessment appeals board that — based on State Board of Equalization guidance — had reversed the assessor’s decision. The opinion finds the Board’s guidance either is “not pertinent, or fails to directly consider the issue presented here, and is therefore unpersuasive.”
The court affirms the divided Second District, Division Five, published opinion.
