How to leverage the value of your property.

The value of a property is dependent on various factors such as; the number of developments put on the property, the location of the property, the age, and condition of the property, etc. While assessing your property for tax responsibilities, taxing authority considers all the information that could help them get the right property value that would determine the amount of property tax that you would be required to pay each year. Below are some of the most effective ways that can be used to leverage the value of your business property.

i. You ought to develop an effective strategy.

This is the first step taken before you can even prepare for the annual property tax returns. It helps in determining the person responsible for the property management process as well as the valuation. It is important to work with your team to get a proactive commercial property tax records strategy. This goes a long way in ensuring that there is an effective management. Once you have a good determination of the person responsible, conduct a proper research on the requirements of each and every jurisdiction. That is their protocols, appeal deadlines and any other relevant information that is crucial in the property tax management.

ii. Ensure you keep comprehensive property records.

Recording your property holdings is great but it is not enough. It is recommended that you should keep updated and comprehensive property record that bring out the real value of your property. This information is also important on other factors such as the general industry, the declines in production and the equipment that fails to meet the updated state-of-the-art. It is recommended that you should document anything that is presented in an additional form and it should be supported with the industry data so as to make a solid case.

iii. Get rid of any ghost assets.

These assets include property that was disposed or transferred to other location. They are the assets that may be on your data list but they are not physically in your building. Tracking these ghost assets in daily operations of the business may be tedious and there are a lot of assets that are lost in the shuffle. This ends up incurring more costs on your business.
It is worth noting that if you have an asset that is in an unrepairable state if it is functional it could still be taxed just like how it would be charged if it was a new asset, fully operational. You should seek to remove all the ghost assets by setting up a process to review your business, personal property as well as other inventory on regular basis.

iv. Ensure that you follow all the industry standards.

Every industry has its own requirements that ought to be replaced on the specific regular basis. If there is expensive equipment that needs replacement, it is essential that you should monitor the personal property. You can look at the other leaders in your industry to have knowledge on how to best manage your property. For instance, if you are to replace computers, it would not be competitive if it is being operated with obsolete equipment. It may actually end up losing its market share to the competitors.

v.You should factor in the economy.

The economy is an external force and it has a great impact on the property value. A downturn of the economy in your industry would mean a depreciation of your property value. While some depreciation is beyond your control, it carries a lot of weight in evaluating the potential to claim any additional obsolescence of your property.