Understanding the Michigan Tax Tribunal

Learn how the Michigan Tax Tribunal resolves tax disputes and what residents and businesses should know about the appeal process.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:19

Hello, everyone, and welcome back to the Lara Living Room, the podcast where we take a closer look at the work happening across the Michigan Department of Licensing and Regulatory Affairs. Today we're talking about the Michigan Tax Tribunal, and they are a part of state government that many people may not be familiar with until they find themselves navigating possibly a tax dispute. Now, joining us today, Patty Helm from the Michigan Tax Tribunal, is going to help us better understand what the tribunal does, how it works, and what people should know if they ever need to file an appeal. But before we dive into chatting with our guest, go ahead and fill up your coffee or your drink of choice, grab a seat and get comfortable because you are now in the LAR living room. Hello, Patty. How are you today? Good, how are you? I'm doing well, thank you. Now, to start us off, can you tell us a little bit about your role at the Michigan Tax Tribunal and what drew you to this work?

SPEAKER_02 1:07

Sure. Probably the most interesting question though is what drew me back to the tribunal. Because I had previously worked at the tribunal. I was appointed by Governor Granholm in the early 2000s. Excuse me, and subsequently she appointed me as chair. And so I was in that role for about 10, 11 years, and then Governor Snyder appointed me to a position with the Michigan Compensation Appellate Commission as a commissioner. I retired from that position. But after a while I I found I didn't like retirement, and so um I decided to come back to the tribunal. It was uh tribunal work is very interesting to me. Um I have a BA in economics and I worked for many years at the state senate as a um policy advisor for the Senate Finance Committee. Some kind of a tax geek. Hello that. Yeah, so um, you know, this kind of work's been very interesting.

SPEAKER_00 2:16

Yeah, so then kind of tell me what a typical day would look like for you.

SPEAKER_02 2:20

Well, um, you know, usually when people go to work, they have a a day planned in their head. Well, it never turns out like that. Um so as chair, I have administrative duties. Um some of those are planned, but most of them pop up during the day, so you know you just have to be really flexible with that. Um the rest of my day I spend um working on cases because not only as chair um with administrative duties, I am one of seven tribunal members and I have a full caseload. So um when I'm not doing administrative chair duties, I work on my cases.

unknown 2:59

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 3:00

And um I'm also as chair responsible for every case that's not assigned to a tribunal member. So I do a lot of um orders looking at different motions. So um every day I I touch many, many cases.

SPEAKER_00 3:14

Yeah. So because that just made me kind of want to make this a broader question now, is what is the Michigan Tax Tribunal, right? So you're you mentioned kind of the different um members of the tribunal, so kind of explain to us what it is that your tribunal does.

SPEAKER_02 3:31

Okay. We are a quasi-judicial agency. Um, so we're not a court in your typical sense of a being a court, but we function as a court. Um we have exclusive jurisdiction over property tax matters, meaning if you have um a dispute about your property taxes, you have to file that dispute with us.

unknown 3:55

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 3:55

We also have concurrent jurisdiction with the court of claims over non-property tax issues, and those include things like state income tax issues, sales and use tax issues, things like that. Um we are a seven-member body appointed by the governor. Um we work full-time, this is our our full-time job. Yeah. Um, and we're multidisciplinary body. So we have several members that are attorneys, we have a appraiser member, an assessor member, or a CPA member. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 4:29

So um it's diverse. I was just gonna say, so it sounds like it's very diverse and and their specialties. And so when you were talking about kind of your guys' workload, is it distributed based off like regions in Michigan, or is it just is it just kind of here are the cases and they just disperse them between the seven of you?

SPEAKER_02 4:48

Um I disperse them. Okay. And basically what we decided um in my first go-around at the tribunal was that the cases should be assigned based on your background, your specialty. Um, you know, it it doesn't make a whole lot of sense for, say, an appraiser member to be assigned a sales tax issue when that is not in their, you know, their wheelhouse. So um cases are assigned based on experience, um, your background. They're the attorney members um basically hear any kind of case. They can hear a property tax case, they can hear a sales tax case, but um for the most part, like the CP members just has sales, use, income, things that are levied by the state and not property tax cases.

SPEAKER_00 5:42

Okay. That makes sense. Now, one thing that surprised me when I was learning about the tribunal is that there are actually two different divisions within your tribunal. So you have your small claims and then the entire tribunal. Can you explain kind of the difference between those two? Sure.

SPEAKER_02 5:55

Um, small claims, it I'd like to say it's kind of like being in a district court, whereas the entire tribunal is is similar to going to a circuit court.

SPEAKER_01 6:05

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 6:06

Um any kind of case can be filed in the entire tribunal except for principal residence exemption cases and disabled veterans exemption cases. But it anything can else can be filed in the tribunal. The small claims division has jurisdictional limits. So for property tax cases, if you are if the amount in dispute is more than$100,000, those have to be filed in the entire tribunal. Um or if for a non-property tax case like an income tax case, if the amount in dispute is it's approximately$31,000, it's adjusted every year by inflation. But if it's more than that, then that also has to be filed in the entire tribunal.

SPEAKER_00 6:53

What would you recommend for people who are potentially wanting to make a dispute, but they're not sure which if they should, is there just like um a main general like phone number or email that they could reach out to, or is there you know some resources on the website if they're like, I don't know if I should reach out to small claims or the entire tribunal or if I even need to reach out to the tax tribunal in general?

SPEAKER_02 7:14

Um yes, we have a uh very robust, I think, um, website um that explains the differences between small claims and entire tribunal. Um so I I would definitely recommend going to the website. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 7:29

And for our listeners too, we can link, um, we'll link the tax tribunal's webpage too, so you can go directly to it. We'll put that in the show notes that way you're able to easily access it. Um this might be the best than us trying to read out the URL link to you. Um, Patty, for someone who has never been through this process before, right, who's never had to um file a dispute, um what does a hearing typically look like in the tax tribunal?

SPEAKER_02 7:55

The hearings in the small claims in the entire tribunal are very different. Um small claims hearings are scheduled to last a half an hour. Okay. And those typically are um cases filed by homeowners. So um it they usually have the the homeowner and the local assessor, or if it's a non-property tax case, it'll be the the person that has the tax dispute and then a representative from the Department of Treasury. Um it's very informal. We swear people in, we give each side about 10 minutes to talk about their case and their evidence. Um the judge may ask them some questions. Um like I said, it's very informal.

unknown 8:43

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 8:43

We after the conclusion of the hearing, then the judge will issue a written decision, and that decision then can be appealed to the Court of Appeals. Umsu small claims division cases don't have attorneys involved with them. That's entirely different for entire tribunal cases. Those cases are typically involve attorneys. Um there are larger amounts in dispute, more complicated cases. Um, those are, you know, like when you think of going to court, that is more of what you see. There is a court reporter, um, there's a lot of witnesses, there's a lot of evidence. Um they typically will run one day to several weeks, depending on how complex they are. They involve typically properties, um, commercial and industrial properties like Target or General Motors, um, golf courses, hotels, things like that. Um usually the homeowner type appeal does not go to an entire tribunal because it there's just um a lot more more formality to it and gotcha a lot more things that you have to do.

SPEAKER_00 9:57

And you mentioned um the Department of Treasury. Are there other departments that are involved in some of these disputes or hearings?

SPEAKER_02 10:05

No.

SPEAKER_00 10:06

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 10:06

No, um it's the the local units of government. Okay. Um the assessors are employed by the local units of government and they're the ones that assess your property tax. So, you know, we could get any number of different assessors from each local unit, but in terms of the state, it's um just the Department of Treasury. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 10:27

No, that makes sense. Um this is kind of just a fun question to get away from. I know that's a lot of heaviness and talking about the hearings and talking about the disputes. What would you say, um, what part, I guess, of the work that you do at the tax tribuna do you find the most rewarding?

SPEAKER_02 10:43

Well, as chair, um I really like the fact that we can hire our own people. We can train them, we make sure we get quality people. Um you know, it's it's rewarding to know that they're doing a good job, that they like their jobs, um, and that, you know, they're providing a good service for the state of Michigan. As a tribunal member, um I enjoy actually issuing a written decision because like I said, these cases are so complex. They, you know, involve hundreds of pages of exhibits, several days of testimony, um, lots of um complicated legal issues that involve a lot of uh legal research. So, you know, when I can get a decision issued, I you know, I I feel like I've you know put my heart and soul into it and done the best I could to to put out a sound legal opinion.

SPEAKER_00 11:45

Absolutely. And you guys talk you talked about kind of these complex cases and your workload and stuff. Can you tell our listeners um outside of the members that you mentioned, how big how many staff members do you have at the tribunal?

SPEAKER_02 11:59

Um currently we have 23 staff members and um uh each and every one of their jobs is very complex. Uh and they multitask. I mean we're very lucky right now to have a great group of people that are very dedicated to their jobs and um like I said it there it's very complex. There's it's you have to be very detail-oriented and um you know they provide uh uh help to parties, you know, we get a lot of calls from people saying they don't know what they they need to do, they don't understand maybe a form. So um, you know, we have a lot of people that work in gov in um, you know, kind of a customer service role position. Yeah, yeah. So um, you know, they have to know all about all the different kinds of cases that we handle and and what forms to file, and yeah, so and it's very interesting.

SPEAKER_00 12:56

I know our last episode we had somebody on um who worked in customer service specifically from the Bureau of Professional Licensing, and she was mentioning that in their teams, they have their customer service teams are split into like four different teams where these people are specialized because they have so many professions. So it's interesting to see on a different side of that where you have a smaller team where they need to be able to have this vast um knowledge of a lot of different things versus this is just my specialty, and if I get a call about it, you know, I transfer it to a different team member. And maybe sometimes that is the case, I'm sure. But it sounds like your team is um is able to take on a lot of these different calls and still know exactly where at least to point them in the right direction and be able to help walk them through that process. So that's really incredible.

SPEAKER_02 13:43

Yeah, and you know, that they do a great job. And like I said, it it is very complex, there's so much to know. And you know, it's not even just our like our customer service type people, our our legal secretaries have to, you know, a little bit about every kind of tax that we administer, and yeah.

SPEAKER_00 14:02

Interesting, yeah, and I think too it's it's great to to see again like some of the the crossover and just I think just kind of like the community too, because I feel like there's a lot of times where we have a lot of um inner workings with your team that might work with other parts of the department. Um I know the communications team has been trying to kind of pull some information and and kind of get your guys' story about what you do. So I appreciate you being on the podcast, even just to tell us a little bit more about the tribunal and what you guys do every day.

SPEAKER_02 14:30

So and I I appreciate it too. It's always good to get the word out because you know people don't know that we exist until such time that they have a a tax dispute and then they don't know what to do. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 14:43

Yep, and I would agree. I would say if I had a tax dispute, I wouldn't know where to go. But I know you, Patty, so I would call you. So where do I go? Um no, and I really do appreciate your time. Um looking at the future, I guess, as kind of a last wrap-up question. Um, is there anything that the public should know maybe coming down the pipeline later, if there's any initiatives or things um happening within the tribunal that maybe you kind of want to highlight for anybody?

SPEAKER_02 15:09

Um well, a couple things um just which is not new, but just to to highlight it, is we're kind of like the IRS in that we have filing deadlines. Okay. So um May 31st is a filing deadline. So if you have and and and filing deadlines are based on what type of property you have. So if you have a commercial industrial type property, you have to file by May 31st. Um if you have a residential or agricultural type property, those um issues have to go to the board of review, the local board of review, and they meet in March.

SPEAKER_01 15:47

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 15:47

Um and after that, if the if the person is still not happy with the board of review decision, then they file with us, and so they have to file that by July 31st.

SPEAKER_01 15:56

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 15:57

Um and in terms of what's going on with us, we have been working for a while now to try to upgrade our e-filing system and our docketing system. Um so that hopefully will be happening soon. Um, one thing that's gonna be a little disruptive for a while with our e-filing system is once that goes live, people are going to have to re-register for um our e-filing. So the the account that they have now will no longer work. Um so there'll be a period of time where everybody's you know trying to to m you know maneuver through that and and get a new uh e-filing system going.

SPEAKER_00 16:36

And this e-filing system is where they would actually file their disputes. Yes. Okay.

SPEAKER_02 16:40

Yes, and we encourage people to do that. I mean, you can still file paper copies, um, but it's so much easier. Um if people will e-file and then we can get them in the system and then we can email them things and and you know it it's more efficient and cuts down on costs, and um, we have a lot less issues with that. So we do encourage people to e-file.

SPEAKER_00 17:02

Yeah, good to know. All right, well, everyone mark your calendars for those dates that Patty mentioned. And um before we wrap up, um, I just want to say thank you again for being here. Um Well, thank you for having me. Yeah, and I appreciate all of your knowledge and information, and I know this will be extremely helpful to a lot of our listeners because I'm sure, like you mentioned, people don't know you exist until they need you. So um I think this is very informational um for them. So again, thank you. Okay. Thank you. Yes, all right. So, as we've heard, um, you know, there is an important role that the Michigan Tax Tribunal plays, and that is in ensuring that, you know, we have a fair and transparent process for resolving any tax disputes. And so I just want to say thank you to everyone for listening. If you'd like to learn more about the Michigan Tax Tribunal, like I mentioned, we'll include some additional resources in the episode notes. So thank you so much for tuning in to the Lara Living Room from our living room to yours. We'll see you next time.