Pung v. Isabella County · ¶26

In short, for hundreds of years, English and American law have allowed the seizure and sale of property as a tax- collection method, provided that the government return any surplus proceeds to the debtor. Our Nation’s history and this Court’s precedent thus establish the principle that when the government seizes and sells property to collect a tax debt, the owner is entitled to the surplus sale pro- ceeds—nothing less, and nothing more. The baseline for measuring just compensation in the tax-sale context is therefore the sale price, not the property’s hypothetical fair market value, at least when the sale is fairly conducted in light of our country’s history of tax sales.

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