DEPT. OF JUSTICE
STATE OF NEBRASKA
OFFICIAL
AUG I 0 mZS NpsnA,sre DnPARTMENT oF Justrcp Opinion No. 26-004 -August I0,2026 OprNroN FoR THE CouNtvAttonNnv op HRu, CouNrv Legality of Retroactive Collection of Municipal Property Taxes Following Annexation Recording Error
Summary: Nebraska law permits county officials to correct errors and omissions in the county tax rolls at any time following the discovery of the error or omission. However, where such error or omission results in the failure to add certain properties to a city tax roll and the date of the property tax levy has passed before the failure was discovered, the county may not retroactively assess and collect municipal property taxes on those properties.
You requested our opinion on whether Nebraska law
would permit Hall County officials to "correct tax rolls and retroactively assess and collect municipal property taxes that were not previously levied due to an administrative error following a municipal annexation." We conclude that while county officials are authorized to correct the county tax rolls at any time in accord with statutory procedures, the Nebraska Revised Statutes do not permit the retroactive assessment and collection of municipal property taxes afber the date that the levy has been finalized.
Your opinion request stems from the recent discovery of an error in the HaIl County tax roll following the annexation of several residential properties by the City of Wood. River, Nebraska, beginning in 2OI7 and continuing throughthe present. These annexations were properly recorded with the
I.
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Op. Att'y Gen. No. 26-004 (August 10,2026) Hall County Register of Deeds. However, these properties were not included in Wood River's tax roll following their annexation to reflect their inclusion in Wood River's taxing jurisdiction. While Hall County continued to assess and collect property taxes on these properties, the failure to include them in Wood River's tax rolls resulted in no city taxes being levied or collected. Your request sets forth two primary questions. First,you ask whether Hall County may correct the tax rolls to reflect the previous property annexations by Wood River. Second, you ask whether the county may retroactively assess and collect municipal property taxes omitted from prior tax years due to an administrative failure to incorporate the annexed properties into Wood River's municipal taxing jurisdiction. We proceedto address each question in turn.
II.
Concerning the correction ofthe county tax rolls to reflect Wood River's annexations, Nebraska statutes provide a mechanism for after-the-fact corrections to the tax roll. Pursuant to Neb. Rev. Stat. S 77-1316.01 (2018), "[t]he county assessor ofany county shall, at any time, correct the tax rolls as provided in section 77-I6L3.O2 for any real property listed on the assessment roII but omitted from the tax roll." The language of S 77-1316.01 places an affirmative duty on the county assessor to correct the tax rolls, and this duty is not subject to any time constraints on when such corrections may be made. Thus, so long as the procedural requirements of Neb. Rev. Stat. $ 77-1613.02 (Supp. 2025) are met, the Hall County Assessor may correct the tax rolls to reflect Wood River's annexations of the residential properties at issue.
III
Notably, while S 77-1613.02 permits correction of"the assessment and tax rolls after action of the county board of equalization or final order of an applicable administrativebody
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Legalityof Retroactiue Collection of Municipal Property Tatces Following Annexation Recording Error
or court," it does not speak to the prospect of retroactive assessment and collection of municipal property taxes not included in the levy. Thus, the two questions presented are separate from one another, and the issue of a county's ability to retroactively impose municipal property taxes requires consideration of Nebraska's statutory mechanisms governing the assessment and collection of property taxes. Each tax year, the process for assessing and levying property taxes is subject to a strict statutory deadline. We start with a summary of major dates and deadlines for county action applicable to each tax year relevant to the question presented:
All real property subject to taxation must be assessed by January 1 in a given year, or for counties with a population of at least 150,000, the county assessor must complete the assessment of real property by March 19. See Neb. Rev. Stat. S 77-I30I (Cum. Snpp.
2024).
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By June 1, the county assessor must certifu that the adjustments to the assessment roll are complete with all notices of valuation changes having been mailed. See Neb. Rev. Stat. S 77-1315 (2018). By July 25, or August 10 for counties thathave extended the deadline for hearing protests under Neb. Rev. Stat. $ 77-I5O2, the county boards of equalization must finalize decisions on individual protests, overvalued or undervalued real property, and omitted property. See Neb. Rev. Stat. S$ 77-1502 and 77-1504 (2018, Cum. Supp . 2024). By August 24, or September 10 for counties thathave extended the hearing deadline under $ 77-1502, taxpayers must file any appeal from a final decision of a county board of equalization with the Tax
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a a a Op. Att'y Gen. No. 26-004 (August I0,2026) Equalization and Review Commission. See Neb. Rev. Stat. $ 77-Llrc (2018).
By September 20, county, city, and political subdivision budgets must be finalized and filed with the levying board and State Auditor. See Neb. Rev. Stat. $ 13-508 (Cum. Supp. 2024).
The date of the levy is October 20 each year, whichis the last date for the county boards of equalization to certifi' tax rates and levies. See Neb. Rev. Stat. $77- 1601(1) (Cum. Supp. 2024), amended by 2026 Neb. Laws L.B. 803, $ 16.
By November 5 each year, the county boardsof equalization must issue all corrections to levies and tax rates stemming from clerical error. See $77-
1601(2).
By Novembet 22, the county assessor must complete the tax list for real and personal property and deliver it to the county treasurer with a signed warrantfor the collection of taxes. See Neb. Rev. Stat. $ 77-1616
(2018).
Realand personal property taxes become due on December 31 for each year. See Neb. Rev. Stat. $$ 77- 203 and 77-204 (2018).
Two of these dates are critical: the date of the levy, and the deadline for county boards of equalizations to correct clerical errors in th6 lew. These two dates reflect the limits of county authority to assess and collect real property taxes. We briefly note, for the November 5 deadline to correct clerical errors in the levy set forth in S 77-1601(2), that safe harbor is inapplicable to the present matter. For each relevant a
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Legality of Retroactiue Collection of Municipal Property Tatrcs Following Annexation Recording Error
tax year that the annexed properties were not included in the city tax roll, the November 5 deadline has passed. Thus, $77- 1601(2) does not provide any avenue for relief. The question therefore centers on the constraints placed on the county after the levy date has passed.
The Nebraska Supreme Court has observed that"the power to tax is determinable as of the date the levy was made."
See Lynch u. Howell, 165 Neb. 525, 529,86 N.W.2d 364, 366 (1957). See also Natural Gas Hpeline Co. of America u. State Bd. of Equal.,237 Neb. 357, 367,466 N.W.2d 46I, 468 (1991) ("The power to tax is exercised when the tax is levied."). The impact of the levy date leads to the conclusion that once the date of the levy has passed, "the rights of individual taxpayers were set in concrete." See DeCamp u. State Bd. of Equal.,2Og Neb. 366, 374,
278 N.W.2d 619,624 (1979) (Clinton, J., concurring). Under the circumstances described in your request, we believe that Justice Clinton's concurrence in DeCamp u. State Bd,. of Equal., sltpra, is instructive. As he described:
It is evident from the timetables that if the equalization and taxing process is to function equitably and as it is supposed to, it must meet the timetables established by the statutes of this state. There is no way the whole process canbe rolled back andnew tax statements sent unless it occurs long before [the date property taxes become due and payable.l Additional taxes cannotbe levied after they have been paid except in the single instance of omitted property. As a practical matter, there can be no wholesale revaluationor levy after [the date the levy is made], simply because the statutes make no provision for it. Id,. at374,278 N.W.2d at624.
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Op. Att'y Gen. No. 26-004 (August L0,2026) Having reviewed relevant statutory authorities, wenote Justice Clinton's observations remain applicable.The retroactive taxation of "omitted property'' remains the single exception to the general temporal limitation on the power to tax pursuant to Neb. Rev. Stat. S$ 77-1317 and 77-1318 (2018). It is our understanding that the properties in question do not qualifr as "omitted property" under Neb. Rev. Stat. $ 77-123 (2018), which states that omitted property means, as relevant to this matter, "any taxable real property that was not assessed on March 19" or on March 25 for "any county with a population of at least one hundred fifty thousand inhabitants." However, the sole omission was the failure to include these properties in the Wood River city tax roll. There does not appear to be any question that the properties were assessed and subject to the Hall County levy for the tax years at issue. Consequently, HaIl County may not use $S 77-I3L7 and 77-1318 to assess and collect the municipal property taxes that would have otherwise been levied.
Given the foregoing, we see no statutory mechamsm allowing for the retroactive assessment and collection of real property taxes for the residential properties that were not included in the Wood River city tax roll until the discovery of the error. If Nebraska law permitted deviation from the general property tax timeline and the retroactive assessment and collection of taxes not levied, there should be specific statutory authority. See L979-80 Rep. Att'y Gen. 169 (Opinion No. 120, dated May 31, 1979) (County that failed to levy taxes for a sanitary and improvement district lacked authority make the levy after taxes became due). In the absence of such authority, we must conclude that Hall County may not retroactively assess and collect real property taxes on those annexed properties for tax years prior to their inclusion in Wood River's city tax roll.
IV
Nebraska law permits county officials to correct the county tax rolls to address errors discovered therein at any time.
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Legality of Retroactiue Collection of Municipal Property Tatces Following Annexation Recording Error
However, there is no statutory authority permitting the county to retroactively assess and collect municipal property taxes after the date of the levy on properties that had mistakenly not been included in a city's tax roll following their annexation. MICHAELT. HTIcnnS
Attorney General of Nebrasha
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