The owners of Rolling Meadows Golf Course in Butler Township asked Schuylkill County Court on Friday to reduce the fair market and assessed values of their property.
In a three-page real estate tax assessment appeal, Rolling Meadows Golf Course LLC, Ashland, alleged the property in Mowry is worth far less than the $882,340 fair market value established by the county Board of Assessment Appeals, especially since it bought the entire property for less than half that amount earlier this year.
Rolling Meadows asked the court to overturn the board's decision Oct. 10, in which it refused to reduce either value, and set those values based on the Feb. 14 purchase price of $380,000.
At stake are significant amounts of tax dollars for Rolling Meadows, the county, township and North Schuylkill School District.
For tax purposes, the 90.7-acre property off Rolling Meadows and Stein roads is divided into four parcels, which have a total fair market value of $882,340 and a total assessed value of $441,170.
The board determined that the improvements have a fair market value of $629,950 and the land has a fair market value of $252,390.
In its appeal, Rolling Meadows, which originally asked the board to reduce the values, said that since it bought the golf course less than a year before the hearing before the board, the purchase price should be presumed under state law to be the property's actual value.
"The decision fails to properly consider the purchase price," the appeal reads in part. "The assessment does not reflect the true value of the (golf course)."