The Muscogee County Board of Tax Assessors the “Board” appeals from the trial court’s grant of summary judgment to Pace Industries, Inc. “Pace”, in an ad valorem tax dispute concerning the availability of the freeport exemption1 for inventory held by Pace in Georgia. Pace applied for the freeport exemption for the tax year 2006 for its inventory of barbecue grill bodies stored in the Columbus warehouse that it leased. The Board ruled that the inventory in question was not exempt from ad valorem taxes under OCGA § 48-5-48.2 b and denied the freeport exemption. After that ruling was affirmed by the board of equalization, Pace appealed to the Superior Court of Muscogee County. The parties filed cross-motions for summary judgment, and the court granted summary judgment in favor of Pace and against the Board. The trial court concluded that Pace’s inventory of grill bodies qualified for the freeport exemption found in OCGA § 48-5-48.2 b 3 a “Category 3″ exemption, because the grill bodies are destined for shipment to “a final destination outside this state.”2 The Board appeals from this order. We conclude that the freeport exemption does not apply to the grill bodies at issue here, and we reverse. On appellate review of the grant or denial of a motion for summary judgment, we conduct a de novo review of the law and the evidence,3 and we view the evidence in the light most favorable to the nonmovant.4 “When a question of law is at issue, as here, we owe no deference to the trial court’s ruling and apply the ‘plain legal error’ standard of review.”5
The facts in this case are undisputed. Pace, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Leggett & Platt, Inc., operates a manufacturing facility in Arkansas. There Pace manufactures barbecue grill bodies, which are die-cast aluminum bodies for gas and charcoal barbeque grills. Pace ships the grill bodies from its Arkansas plant to a warehouse it leases in Columbus, where they are stored until they are needed by Char-Broil, a producer and distributor of barbeque grills located in Columbus. Char-Broil is one of Pace’s major customers for the grill bodies, and Pace manufactures the grill bodies to Char-Broil’s specifications. Pace sells and delivers the grill bodies to Char-Broil at Char-Broil’s Columbus plant. Char-Broil incorporates the grill bodies into finished barbecue grills, which Char-Broil then ships to its customers, mainly large retail stores. The record reflects that during calendar year 2003, Char-Broil shipped 94.4 percent of its completed grills to customers outside the state of Georgia.6
