Business Personal Property Tax

This memorandum provides background information on Colorado’s business personal property tax. Personal property includes machinery, equipment, and other goods used to operate a business that are not part of a building or structure and its fixtures. For the purposes of this memo, business personal property encompasses generally nonresidential (income producing), private personal property that is not used in a religious or nonprofit, charitable organization.

While tax on business personal property is often discussed as a separate tax, including in this memorandum, it is part of the broad-based property tax imposed by many local governments in Colorado. Business personal property is subject to property tax in taxing districts that have not enacted an exemption. Residential personal property is exempt from taxation throughout Colorado, as are business inventories, livestock, agricultural products, and agricultural equipment.