Lower Personal Property Portfolio Risk Through Proactive Compliance, Appeals And Audit Management

RPTA handles every aspect of personal property tax management, spanning complex portfolios and multiple taxing jurisdictions.

Personal Property Compliance Management

Personal property tax laws vary significantly across states and jurisdictions. This makes compliance challenging, especially for companies with multi-building portfolios. Whether you own a couple of buildings or hundreds of them, determining the tax value of personal property housed within your commercial real estate is especially daunting – and time-consuming.

That’s why RPTA offers comprehensive, outsourced personal property tax compliance management. Among other services, we:

• Audit and review asset listings to classify assets as aggressively as possible while complying with state law
• File timely and accurate tax returns with the required documentation on your behalf
• Leverage opportunities to file for inventory exemptions, pollution control and other abatements
• Employ every allowable course of action to lower your property tax liability

When you rely on RPTA to ensure your personal property tax compliance, you can rest easy knowing that we’re working on your behalf to reduce your exposure as well as manage penalties and mandated audits.

Personal Property Compliance Returns And Appeals

If your commercial real estate resides in any state that taxes personal property, you’re required to file an annual compliance return that values your fixed assets. The taxing jurisdiction then reviews your return and issues an assessment notice, which may match, increase or decrease your reported value.

Because this value directly affects your tax liability, having expert knowledge in the area of asset classification is critical. Everything that resides within your physical location – from furniture, fixtures, equipment and inventory to packaging, paper and pens – has a depreciation rate that affects its value. RPTA offers the expertise to report on and appeal these values, saving you time and ensuring the best opportunity for tax savings.

To deliver these benefits, we:

• Determine which aspects of your personal property are taxable and file the annual compliance return
• Classify your fixed assets and identify ways to move them into accelerated depreciation categories
• Manage the appeal process if the jurisdiction’s assessment is greater than the reported value (even when it extends over multiple years), and steer value discussions to negotiate the lowest tax liability

Personal Property Audit Support And Negotiation

Today, state governments regularly audit corporate personal property tax returns. Many states, such as Tennessee, California and North Carolina, have clear statutory audit cycles, whereas other states allow the individual jurisdictions to set audit cycles.

When an audit occurs, RPTA provides you with the support and negotiation services you need to secure the best results. Among other services, we:

• Manage the entire audit process to minimize your exposure to additional taxes
• Defend returns
• Provide the auditing jurisdiction with all of the necessary documentation to support the returned value
• Review the jurisdiction’s audit findings and make a recommendation to accept the findings or appeal the audit value

Personal Property Is Best Handled Proactively

Don’t wait until you’re hit with an audit to make personal property tax management a priority. Reach out to RPTA today to put yourself in the best position to mitigate risk across your entire portfolio.

Reduce Personal Property Risk With Minimal Time And Effort