Welfare Fed. v. Peck

Full title: THE WELFARE FEDERATION OF CLEVELAND, APPELLANT v. PECK, TAX COMMR., ET…

Court: Supreme Court of Ohio

Date published: Jan 27, 1954

117 N.E.2d 1 (Ohio 1954)

117 N.E.2d 1

Opinion

No. 33562

Decided January 27, 1954.

Taxation — Real property — Building used for exempt and nonexempt purposes — Split listing for tax exemption — Section 5560, General Code — Separate floors constituting separate entities.

APPEAL from the Board of Tax Appeals.

The Welfare Federation of Cleveland, an institution exclusively for charitable purposes, filed with the Board of Tax Appeals an application for exemption from taxation, for the year 1952, of the upper nine floors of applicant's eleven-story building. During the period in question the upper nine floors were used exclusively for charitable purposes and the first and second floors were rented to commercial firms with a view to profit.

The Board of Tax Appeals conceded that applicant is an exclusively charitable institution and that the portion of the building which it seeks to have exempted was used exclusively for charitable purposes during 1952, but denied the application on the ground that the building was not capable of physical separation into separate entities and could be valued for tax listing purposes only by valuing the entire building and determining the percentage that the exempt portion bore to the entire building, which method, the board held, had been disapproved by the Supreme Court.

An appeal from the decision of the board brings the cause to this court for review.

Messrs. Thompson, Hine Flory, Mr. Jerome C. Fisher, Mr. Frank E. Bubna and Mr. William D. Ginn, for appellant.

Mr. C. William O'Neill, attorney general, and Mr. W.E. Herron, for appellees.

Per Curiam.

The question presented is whether, for purposes of taxation, a split listing of the building having a single ownership may be effected by a horizontal plane separating the first and second floors from those above.

Under authority of Section 5560, General Code, providing for split listing, for tax exemption, of a single parcel of real estate having a single ownership, and the construction given that section in the case of Trustees of The Church of God of Cleveland v. Board of Tax Appeals, 159 Ohio St. 517, 112 N.E.2d 633, there may be a split listing as requested by applicant.

The decision of the Board of Tax Appeals, being unlawful, is reversed, and the cause is remanded for further proceedings according to law.

Decision reversed.

MIDDLETON, TAFT, HART, STEWART and LAMNECK, JJ., concur.