True cash value (TCV) of industrial personal property; MCL 211.27(1); Exclusion of “turbine” personal property from exemptions; MCL 211.903(3)(b); MCL 380.1211(1) & (10)(e)(ii); The Tax Tribunal’s (TT) jurisdiction; MCL 205.731; Whether filing a properly completed statement of assessable property is always a prerequisite to invoking the TT’s jurisdiction; MCL 205.735a(4)(b); “May”; Walters v. Nadell; “Party in interest”; MCL 205.735a(6); Spartan Stores, Inc. v. Grand Rapids; Review of the TT’s findings & value determinations; The substantial evidence test; Black v. Department of Soc. Servs.; Deduction of the costs associated with construction of a new switchyard from the base cost estimate for a new plant; Reduction for intangibles; Meadowlanes Ltd. Dividend Hous. Ass’n v. Holland; Deduction for working capital; Estimate for the cost to finance a new construction project; Plant efficiency & fuel costs; Relevance of evidence; Jones & Laughlin Steel Corp. v. Warren; Including an amount attributable to the owner’s profit in the cost of a new plant; Meijer, Inc. v. Midland; Metuchen I, LLC v. Borough of Metuchen (NJ Tax Ct.); Treatment of expenses associated with constructing a switchyard; Sanctions; MCL 205.732(c); Rule 792.10215; MCR 2.114(D) (now (E)); LaRose Mkt., Inc. v. Sylvan Ctr., Inc.; Meisner Law Group, PC v. Weston Downs Condo Ass’n; Adamo Demolition Co. v. Department of Treasury; Appellate jurisdiction; MCR 7.203(A)(1) & (2); MCL 205.753(2); MCR 7.202(6)(a)(i)

In this dispute over assessments on a power plant’s industrial personal property (IPP), the court held that the TT did not commit an error of law in determining that it had jurisdiction or that petitioner-New Covert Generating (NCG) was a party in interest. Further, it did not err in giving “turbine” its ordinary meaning in construing the statutes excluding turbine personal property from the exemptions otherwise applicable to IPP. The court rejected the parties’ challenges to the TT’s findings and value determinations, and held that it did not err in concluding that the filing of certain motions by respondent-township and intervening respondent-county merited sanctions. Thus, it affirmed in both respondents’ appeal and NCG’s cross-appeal the TT’s opinion and judgment setting the TCV of the IPP at issue for 2016, and its order imposing sanctions for filing frivolous motions. The court first held that the TT did not err in determining that NCG met MCL 205.735a(4)(b)’s requirements. Thus, the TT “had the authority to consider the appeal.” Next, as it was undisputed that NCG “was the actual owner of the real and personal property that had been assessed[,]” the court found that it was clearly “a party in interest under both the original understanding of that phrase and the broadened construction of that phrase given by the Spartan Stores Court.” In construing the undefined term “turbine,” the TT properly “looked to a dictionary for evidence of the common usage for the” word. In addition, it did not commit an error of law in interpreting the relevant “statutes to apply to a machine or engine rotated by fluid that was powered by—in relevant part—gas or steam and with a primary purpose of generating electricity. As such it did not commit an error of law when it concluded that the term did not apply to ancillary equipment necessary to enable the turbine to generate electricity.” It also did not err in deductions for construction of a new switchyard, intangibles, or working capital, or in accepting NCG’s expert’s estimate of the cost to finance new construction and the heat rate for a new plant. The court rejected NCG’s claim that the TT “erred by including in the cost of a new plant an amount attributable to the owner’s profit” or in how it treated certain expenses. Finally, once the TT “found that counsel filed the motions for an improper purpose, it had to impose an appropriate sanction, even if the motion was otherwise well grounded in fact and law.”