Poverty exemption from property taxes; MCL 211.7u(1); Smith v. Forester Twp. (Smith I); Due process; Cummings v. Wayne Cnty.; Great Lakes Div. of Nat’l Steel Corp. v. Ecorse; Burden of proving entitlement to a tax exemption; ProMed Healthcare v. Kalamazoo; Effect of State Tax Commission (STC) bulletins; Ferrero v. Walton Twp.; STC Bulletin No. 5 of 1995

The court held that petitioner-Smith was afforded due process, and that the Tax Tribunal (TT) did not err in accepting his 2017 poverty exemption application (including a “Part H Schedule”) into evidence. Further, the TT did not err in rejecting his appeal from respondent-township’s denial of his request for the exemption. His appeal as to his 2017 taxes was the third year in a row he appealed denial of the exemption. The court decided his appeal as to his 2015 taxes in Smith I, determining that “reverse-mortgage payments impact a landowner’s ability to pay property taxes” and thus, are properly counted against the landowner. The $6,580 in reverse-mortgage payments he received in 2017 exceeded “the $4,500 asset limit under the poverty exemption.” Alternatively, they raised his “income over the $12,060 federal poverty level. He received $9,922 in Social Security benefits, $6,580 in reverse-mortgage payments, and only suffered a business loss of $1,691, or a total income of $14,811.” The court found that the TT did not deny him due process by permitting respondent to raise the reverse-mortgage payments issue for the first time at a referee hearing. He “was on notice from the outset of his 2017 application” that these payments could be counted against him. They “were used to calculate his income in 2015 and the inclusion of those payments was the subject of” Smith I. He included the 2017 payments “on his 2017 poverty exemption application and included a statement of why” he believed they should not count against him. “It should have come as no surprise to Smith when the issue was raised” in the TT appeal of his 2017 exemption denial following the issuance of Smith I. Further, his 2017 application including the Part H Schedule was necessary for the TT to consider his appeal and he should have provided it “in the first instance as he bore the burden of proof.” The TT also did not err in considering and relying on the “recent, relevant, binding” authority of Smith I. Given the Smith I holding that “the reverse-mortgage payments, whether considered income or assets, resulted in Smith being ineligible for” the exemption, there was no way for him to show that they were irrelevant to whether he was entitled to the exemption. Affirmed.