Tax Court: Buckeye Perth Amboy Terminal, LLC, v. City of Perth Amboy;Docket No. 013403-2019; opinion by Sundar, J.T.C.,decided March 27, 2020. For plaintiff - John S. Wisniewski (Wisniewski & Associates, LLC, attorneys); for defendant -William T. Rogers (Hoagland, Longo, Moran, Dunst & Doukas,LLP, attorneys).
Held: Defendant’s imposition of an assessment in September 2019 for tax year 2019, to capture the assessment on a bidirectional petroleum pipeline that was constructed and placed in service in May 2018, is proper under the omitted assessment statute, N.J.S.A. 54:4-63.31, although defendant’s assessor called it an “added” assessment in the assessment notice. The newly constructed pipeline was assessed for the first time in 2019. Therefore, precedent voiding added or omitted assessments to change an already-imposed regular assessment (even if the improvement was valued at $0) does not control. Additionally, the omitted assessment statute presupposes the existence of an improvement as of an assessment date; therefore, invalidating an assessment on this ground cannot be supported under the statute’s plain language, or its underlying intent and purposes as interpreted by our higher courts.