Reduce Business Personal Property Taxes

Under current law, if a business has less than $7,300 of personal property that would be listed on a single personal property schedule, then the personal property is exempt from the property tax and the business is not required to submit a schedule to the county assessor. With respect to this exemption, the bill reduces the amount of personal property tax that businesses pay by:

• Increasing the exemption that applies per schedule from $7,300 to $50,000, adjusted for inflation in the future, which increase will allow more businesses to avoid filing personal property tax schedules; and
• Allowing businesses whose personal property value exceeds the total exemption amount to claim the exemption.

For public utilities that are assessed statewide, the property tax administrator currently considers all of a public utility's tangible property within the state as a factor in determining the value of the public utility as a unit. The bill modifies the valuation process by:

• Exempting the first $50,000 or an inflation-adjusted amount of personal property from the property tax and excluding it from the administrator's consideration for valuation purposes; and
• Excluding the exempt personal property from the public utility's statement of property that it files with the administrator.
  (Note: This summary applies to this bill as introduced.)