Gifford-Hill & Co., Inc. v. Wise County Appraisal Dist.

Today’s opinion creates a tax loophole big enough to drive a gravel truck through. The court’s decision converts the Texas Constitution’s insistence on tax fairness into a tax injustice by concluding that limestone is not taxable as a mineral in place. This conclusion undoubtedly will be viewed with as much surprise at the barbershop as at the law school or the university geology department.

In 1987, the Wise County Appraisal District assessed a tax valuation that combined separate appraisals of the surface acreage and the underlying limestone deposits. The court of appeals upheld Wise…