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County Counsel recommending the Board deny the claims received from T-Mobile West, LLC in the total amount of $92,049.28, plus interest, for unitary property taxes paid for Tax Years 2018/19, 2019/20, 2020/21, 2021/22, and 2022/23.
FUNDING: General Fund.
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DISCUSSION / BACKGROUND
The Clerk of the Board of Supervisors received five tax refund claims from T-Mobile West, LLC, requesting the return of the following amounts paid, plus appropriate interest, for taxes levied for the following fiscal years:
FY 2018/19 $14,866.40
FY 2019/20 $15,736.94
FY 2020/21 $20,560.94
FY 2021/22 $23,135.12
FY 2022/23 $17,749.88
TOTAL: $92,049.28
T-Mobile West, LLC is one of several telecommunications companies pursuing refund claims against a number of counties, alleging that the statutory formula used to calculate its property tax rate is unconstitutional. 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.
T-Mobile West, LLC previously submitted ref...
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