Senior Counsel Andrew Marshalleck, the lead attorney representing G A Roe and Sons Limited in this appeal, granted 7News an interview at midday. Here's how he explained the context of this judgment to us:
E. Andrew Marshalleck, SC - Attorney for G A Roe and Sons Ltd.
"The arguments presented to the court were the same from beginning to the end. The arguments found fertile ground only in the CCJ."
"The case concerned the power of the Commission of Stamps to reassess property values for the purposes of charging stamp duties on a transfer of land. What had happened in this particular case was that the appellant had purchased land at public auction from the Belize Bank and when the transfer papers were submitted and the purchase, the taxes were charged on the purchase price. And then, when it went to the Commissioner of Stamps for review and the purchase price was more than doubled and more stamp duty is levied on the. We, of course, took the position that what was done was unlawful. But the commissioner doesn't have any basis for rejecting a price fetched at public auction as representing anything different at all from the market value of the particular land. They took the view that the price fetched at the auction was irrelevant and what was important was their own valuations of the land and sought to impose taxes based on those valuations. What the court has now established is that the Commissioner of Stamps is not entitled to do so, that the price stated in the document between are prepared between a willing buyer and willing seller knowledgeable of the property being bought, or it is in fact market value and is the best evidence of market value. And it's only where the commissioner is in possession of evidence which displaces effectively a presumption that this is market value, that she's entitled to go to evidence of valuations to charge the taxes."
