The Corpus Christi/Edinburgh Court of Appeals has held that a taxpayer cannot allege an ultra vires claim to bypass the ARB process.
Richard Molina, Chief Appraiser, and Cameron County Appraisal District v. QET Aircraft Services, LLC, and Mario L. Arrieta Lopez (No. 13-25-00127-CV; February 26, 2026) arose from a dispute over the assessment of personal property taxes on four aircraft with a combined appraised value of about $2.1 million. The taxpayers filed a § 25.25(c), Tax Code, motion to correct the appraisal roll for each plane on the basis that the property “does not exist in the form or at the location described in the appraisal roll” for tax year 2022. The ARB denied the motion. The taxpayers sued, seeking a declaratory judgment and permanent injunction against the chief appraiser’s alleged “ultra vires act.” They sought recovery of more than $50,000. Two years later, the taxpayers filed an amended petition seeking $116,366.72 in refunds for tax years 2022, 2023, and 2024 and an order compelling the appraisal district to correct the appraisal roll for those tax years. They moved for summary judgment. Defendants filed a plea to the jurisdiction on the basis of failure to exhaust administrative remedies, which the trial court denied. Defendants appealed.
In an opinion by Justice Silva, the court of appeals affirmed in part and reversed and rendered in part. Defendants argued that the taxpayers were really challenging the denial of an exemption and didn’t exhaust administrative remedies because they missed the protest deadline. Instead, they filed a § 25.25(c) motion to correct, which Plaintiffs argue was sufficient to timely challenge the denial of the exemption. Unfortunately for the taxpayers, § 25.25 “does not confer jurisdiction upon the trial court to review a purported exemption never considered by the ARB…. Because [the taxpayers] failed to exhaust the required administrative remedies regarding the denial of an exemption as to all of [their] aircraft, they have failed to affirmatively demonstrate that the trial court had subject-matter jurisdiction over denial of their tax exemption.” Still, because the taxpayers filed a timely § 25.25 motion, the trial court “has limited jurisdiction to review [their] motion seeking correction under § 25.25(c)(3).” But only for tax year 2022, since the record contained no final ARB order denying a request to correct the appraisal roll for tax years 2023 and 2024.
Turning to the ultra vires claim that the chief appraiser acted outside the scope of his discretion by assessing allegedly exempt property, the court concluded that the chief appraiser had plenty of statutorily-conferred discretion “to determine whether personal property, such as aircraft, is taxable, the market value of the property, and assess the corresponding ad valorem tax.” To rule otherwise would be to allow “any taxpayer who fails to exhaust their administrative remedies regarding the protest of a tax exemption [to] bypass the process altogether by simply alleging that the appraiser’s incorrect assessment was ultra vires.” The court thus affirmed the trial court’s denial of Defendants’ plea to the jurisdiction as to the § 25.25 motion to correct for 2022, reversed it with respect to tax years 2023 and 2024, and reversed and rendered judgment for Defendants on the ultra vires claims for all tax years.
