"The provision of section 85 of the Law therefore limits the time frame within which the Director may exercise his authority to amend an assessment, and determines that an assessment correction may be made within four years from the date it becomes final. Another limitation set out in section 85 of the law relates to the grounds listed in the section for which it will be possible to open the final assessment, which is mainly concerned with the discovery of new facts, an error or misleading. In this way, Section 85 of the Real Estate Taxation Law embodies a balance that the legislature struck between the principles of finality, certainty and stability, and the principle of imposing a real tax. Indeed, as I noted in another matter:
"The assumption is that in exceptional and special cases, the principle of finality of the assessment is withdrawn from the public interest that underlies the principle of true tax collection, and that there is a material error in the assessment (whether it is a factual error or a legal error); whether it acts in favor of the taxpayer or against him) can be amended, subject to the deadlines set by law and while giving due weight to the taxpayer's reliance interest, which may change his situation for the worse by relying in good faith on the erroneous assessment" [Civil Appeal 7726/10 State of Israel v. Mahlab (October 16, 2012), at paragraph 27 of my opinion (hereinafter: the Mahlab case) (emphasis added).
To this, it may be added that an assessment amendment under section 85 of the law can be done both at the initiative of the Real Estate Taxation Administration and at the request of the taxpayer, in a manner that shows that the balance between these principles can work for the benefit of both the taxpayer and the administrative authority." [emphasis added]
See also Judgment Avivi Reich In paragraph 13 of the judgment of the Honorable Justice Mintz:
"The provision of section 85 of the law limits the time frame in which the director may exercise his authority to amend an assessment and sets it at four years from the date the assessment becomes final. The section embodies the balance that the legislature has struck between the principles of finality, certainty and stability on the one hand, and the principle of imposing a real tax on the other. The fact that the correction of an assessment under the section can be carried out both at the initiative of the director and at the request of the taxpayer, indicates that the balance between these principles can work in favor of either of the parties. Once for the benefit of the taxpayer and once for the benefit of the Authority."
- Moreover, and in the context of more than necessary, it should be said that the Article 85 The law reflects the purpose that the legislature saw before its eyes, namely: the desire to reach a true tax assessment, and in order to achieve this purpose, the legislature found to determine In section 85(a) The law has the option of amending both a self-assessment and an assessment according to the best judgment, and this option was given to both the taxpayer and the Real Estate Tax Administration. All this, while balancing this purpose against the need for finality of assessment, due to which the four-year limit was set In section 85 The above.
- In addition, the case law discusses the question of the essence of the "mistake" to which the provision of the Section 85(a)(3) of the Real Estate Taxation Law, and it was determined that this was any mistake – factual or legal.
See in this regard: Civil Appeal 736/87 Yakubovitz et al. v. Nazareth Betterment Tax Administration (hereinafter – the Jacobovich Rule) (paragraphs 5 and 7 of the judgment of Justice A. Barak, as he was described at the time):