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An exemption application is
timely filed when it is placed in the United States first class mail, properly
addressed with sufficient postage, and post-marked on or before the due date.
I.C. § 6-1.1-36-1.5(b); see also, Indiana Sugars v. State Bd. of Tax
Comm’rs, 683 N.E.2d 1386, 1387 (Ind. Tax Ct. 1997). When an assessor
receives an application through the mail, determining timeliness is normally a
straightforward proposition—one can simply look at the postmark. But the
question is more complicated where, as here, a taxpayer mailed applications the
assessor did not receive.
The Indiana Tax Court faced a
similar question in Indiana Sugars. To answer it, the court looked to
two cases for guidance: F & F Construction Co. v. Royal Globe Insurance
Co., 423 N.E.2d 654 (Ind. Ct. App. 1981) and Tri Creek Lumber Co. v.
State Bd. of Tax Comm’rs, 558 N.E.2d 1130 (Ind. Tax Ct. 1990). F & F
Construction turned on whether an insured mailed papers to notify its
insurer of a lawsuit. The insured’s president had placed the papers on his
office manager’s desk and told him to mail them. The office manager, however,
did not acknowledge that directive. Indiana Sugars, 683 N.E.2d at 1386 (citing
F & F Construction). Normal office procedure would have been for the
office manager to give the papers to one of the “girls” to mail, but neither he
nor anyone else involved in the mailing processes remembered seeing the papers,
addressing or stamping an envelope, enclosing the papers in the envelope, or
taking them to the post office or a mail box. F & F Construction,
423 N.E.2d at 655. The court of appeals held that the insured failed to
identify facts precluding summary judgment against it. Id.
In Tri Creek Lumber, the
Tax Court was asked to determine whether a taxpayer, which argued that its personal
property return was lost in the mail, should have been penalized for failing to
file a return. Indiana Sugars, 683 N.E.2d at 1386 (citing Tri Creek
Lumber, 558 N.E.2d at 1386). The court analogized to a statute governing
the Indiana Department of Revenue, which provides that a document mailed to,
but not received by, the department will be considered timely filed based on
“reasonable evidence” that it was mailed before its due date. Tri Creek
Lumber, 558 N.E.2d at 1132. In the court’s view, testimony from the
taxpayer’s president that he gave the return to his secretary to mail did not
meet that standard. Id. at 1387 (citing Tri Creek Lumber, 58 N.E.2d at 1131).
Turning to the facts before it in
Indiana Sugars, the Tax Court found reasonable evidence that the
taxpayer mailed its application for a tax-credit. Indiana Sugars, 558
N.E.2d at 1387. To support its finding, the court pointed to the following: (1)
the taxpayer’s extensive procedures designed to guard against missing filing
deadlines; (2) the fact that the taxpayer’s accountant had delivered the
completed application, which needed only to be signed and mailed, to the
taxpayer; and (3) testimony from the taxpayer’s controller that he personally
deposited the application in the U.S. mail on or before its due date. Id.
at 1387.
Thus, based on Indiana Sugars and
the cases discussed therein, the Diocese needed to offer reasonable evidence
that it mailed Lot 34 and 35’s applications before May 15, 2006. The Diocese
met that standard, if only barely. True, Ms. Wheeler did not place the applications
in the U.S. mail as the taxpayer’s president in Indiana Sugars did. But she did
not just drop the applications on somebody’s desk like the taxpayers’
presidents in F & F Construction and Tri Creek Lumber either.
Instead, Ms. Wheeler knew that the applications went out with the rest of the
Diocesan mail. And she testified that the Diocese had no problem obtaining
exemptions claimed on personal property returns that were included in the same
day’s outgoing mail. That supports an inference that the Assessor received and
processed those other documents, which in turn supports an inference that the
applications for Lots 34 and 35 were timely deposited in the U.S. mail.
Finally, the Diocese also
requests exemptions for years after 2006, arguing that the Assessor failed to
explain the need to file applications for those years. The PTABOA’s denials of
the Diocese’s exemption applications for the 2006 assessment date, however, are
the only actions covered by the Diocese’s Form 132 petitions. The Board
therefore will not address what, if any, relief the Diocese may be entitled to
for later years.
