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County Counsel recommending the Board deny unitary property tax refund claims received from Pacific Bell and AT&T Mobility LLC for Tax Years 2017/18, 2019/20, 2020/21, and 2021/22; T-Mobile West LLC for Tax Year 2017/18; and Sprint Telephony PCS, L.P. for Tax Year 2017/18.
FUNDING: General Fund.
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DISCUSSION / BACKGROUND
Several telecommunication companies, including Pacific Bell and AT&T Mobility LLC, T-Mobile West LLC, and Sprint Telephony PCS, L.P. are pursuing refund claims against a number of counties, challenging the statutory formula used to calculate its property tax rate. The claimants allege that the tax rate applied to their property taxes exceed the rate allowed by the constitution. Under Article XIII, sec. 19 of the California Constitution, the State Board of Equalization (“State BOE”) is charged with annually valuing and assessing the taxable property of a telecommunications company operating across the state as one unit. Property so valued and assessed is known as “unitary property.” Once the unitary property is assessed, the State BOE transmits to each county the assessed value of the portion of property located within the individual county. The amount of unitary property assessments attributed to the county by the State BOE are then taxed in accordance with the statutory formula. County auditors have no discretion on their calculation of the unitary tax rate; they are required to impose a tax on unitary property using the rate calculation formula prescribed in Rev. & Tax. Code § 100.
The Clerk of the Board of Supervisors received tax refund claims from Pacific Bell and AT&T Mobility LLC, T-Mobile West LLC, and Sprint Telephone PCS, LP requesting the return of the following amounts paid, plus appropriate interest, for taxes levied for the following fiscal years:
Pacific Bell
FY 2017/18 $118,085
FY 2019/20 $94,446
FY 2020/21 $102,945
FY 2021/22 $263,004
AT&T
FY 2017/18 $40,293
FY 2019/20 $47,190
FY 2020/21 $83,071
FY 202...
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