Timeliness of petitions as to tax years 2019 & 2020; Relief under MCL 205.735a, MCL 211.53a, & MCL 211.53b; “Mutual mistake of fact”; International Place Apts-IV v Ypsilanti Twp; Differentiating between mistakes of fact & mistakes of law; Briggs Tax Serv, LLC v Detroit Pub Sch; Application of MCL 211.181(1) to tax years 2021, 2022 & beyond; Nomads, Inc v Romulus; Kalamazoo v Richland Twp; Burden of proof; “Business conducted for profit”; Tax Tribunal (TT)

The court held that no statute petitioner-Bodeco identified provided the TT “with the authority to grant relief on [its] claims for tax years 2019 and 2020.” As to tax years 2021, 2022, and beyond, the court found that the TT applied an incorrect burden of proof. It held that respondent-city “had the burden of proof to show that the tax-imposing statute, MCL 211.181(1), applied to petitioner’s property.” Thus, it affirmed the TT’s dismissal of petitioner’s claims as to tax years 2019 and 2020, vacated the TT’s final opinion and judgment insofar as it held petitioner subject to the tax imposed in MCL 211.181(1), and remanded. The case involved where “whether an airplane hangar Bodeco built on land it leased from the Northwestern Regional Airport Commission was subject to taxation by” respondent. Petitioner challenged the dismissal of its claims for tax years 2019 and 2020 on timeliness grounds. It claimed the TT had the authority to afford relief for these tax years “under MCL 205.735a, MCL 211.53a, and MCL 211.53b.” The court disagreed. Petitioner’s “petition was not filed ‘on or before [5/31] of the tax year involved’” as set forth in MCL 205.735a(6). And it was not filed within 35 days of the constructive denial of petitioner’s initial challenge by the board of review. As to MCL 211.53a, the court held that the TT erred in ruling that it “did not apply because a mutual mistake of fact could only be ‘an error of a transpositional, typographical, or mathematical nature.’” But the TT reached the right result because “its decision that petitioner failed to identify a mutual mistake of fact contemplated by MCL 211.53a was correct. The purported mutual mistakes petitioner identified are mistakes of law, not of fact[.]” Turning to the TT’s determination on the merits as to the claims for tax years 2021, 2022, and beyond, the court held that the TT “employed an incorrect burden of proof by requiring petitioner to prove that MCL 211.181(1) did not apply to its property, instead of requiring respondent to show that MCL 211.181(1) did apply to that property.” Also, the court questioned the TT’s “application of MCL 211.181(1) to Bodeco and” a nonparty company, finding that the TT’s “interpretation of the statute effectively removed the phrase ‘conducted for profit[.]’”