For this reason, the language of section 85 of the law does not limit or qualify the possibilities of amendment, when one of the grounds under section 85(a) of the assessment amendment exists, other than the four-year time limit specified in this section. This is the balance of interests established by the legislature and which the case law has maintained throughout the years.
- It should also be remembered that the case law did not limit or limit the authority to amend an assessment according to Article 85 of the law, except for the requirement set forth in the Jakubowitz, which refers mainly to the proactive exercise of the authority by the Real Estate Taxation Administration, according to:
"The power to change an administrative decision must be exercised by paying attention to the right of the individual to preserve rights that were formed in his hands as a result of the decision, and taking into account his reliance on them. Indeed, the power to change and the exercise of discretion within the framework of the authority are separate" (p. 371 of the judgment).
- Therefore, apart from the fact that in both real estate taxation and income tax, the possibility of amending is at the initiative of the relevant tax officer or at the request of the taxpayer – all the other provisions, schedules and conditions for amending an assessment in real estate taxation as opposed to amending a report or assessment in the Income Tax – are completely different, and as a result, the scope of the authority to amend the assessment must also be interpreted differently.
Therefore, I did not find any interpretive anchor for the respondent's arguments in his summaries regarding the determination of preliminary conditions for examining an application to amend an assessment in real estate taxation. Accordingly, I have not found that the ruling to which the respondent referred in his summaries (paragraph 67(b) of the summaries) is relevant to our matter or binds the committee in question. The Judgment in the Matter of Civil Appeal 1804/05 Ehud Aloni v. Kfar Saba Assessor (31.01.08) deals with a factual situation that is completely different from the factual situation in the case at hand, and in any case it should not be inferred from it regarding the amendment of the assessment according to Real Estate Taxation Law.
- A dispute similar to our case, regarding the amendment of an assessment and a change in a declaration on the purchase of a right in real estate, was discussed in the judgment in the appeal Appeals Committee 37589-04-15 Katz Geva Itzkowitz KGI in Tax Appeal v. Tel Aviv Real Estate Taxation Administration (July 17, 2018) (hereinafter: The Katz Geva Affair), where the Appeals Committee held (see paragraph 26 of the opinion of CPA Z. Friedman, with whom the Chairman of the Committee, the Honorable Justice H. Kirsch, that the respondent's position in that case regarding impediments due to the declaration in the self-assessment should not be accepted:
"The argument that the appellant submitted, immediately after the signing of the sale agreement, a declaration of the purchase of a right in the real estate and thus revealed her opinion to the respondent, in real time, that she had purchased a right in the land and creates obstacles for the appellant to claim that it was not a purchase of a right in the land, must be rejected, since indeed it appears that the initial report was made in error, and after the appellant "discovered" the error, she filed a request to amend the assessment in accordance with section 85 of the law. I do not see anything wrong with this, in the sense that "he who does not make mistakes does not make mistakes, and he who does not make mistakes does not know anything" (Chinese proverb)."