Property Tax

Today’s unpredictable environment requires property owners to be proactive. When business conditions shift, property tax assessments may not automatically reflect those changes, unlike some other forms of tax. Deloitte can provide insights on valuations and the process for pursuing assessments to keep pace with new business realities.

Our team, which contains former assessment officials and industry specialists, can advise you through engaging with jurisdictions, identifying and addressing forms of obsolescence (physical, functional and economic), and refining processes for efficiency and relief.

Property owners facing changing economic conditions, whether declining demand and excess capacity or increasing demand and supply chain delays, may want to engage with assessing jurisdictions about the nature of those external factors and the impacts on the value of their assets. Timing is critical as the appeal period is short (typically 30-60 days) and assessing jurisdictions typically have greater flexibility to grant relief on matters that are raised proactively versus in an appeal setting. Addressing these issues in the current property tax filing season may impact the property tax assessment for the current tax year and beyond. For property owners concerned about disruptions to their operations, it may be important to review processes for efficiencies and opportunities to automate.

Deloitte’s Property Tax practice can assist clients in all aspects of property tax. The diverse backgrounds of our teams include former assessment officials and former industry personnel, with deep geographic and industry experience. Our group can provide clients with a breadth of insight into property tax issues. Our practice also has access to Deloitte’s network of industry specialists, valuation professionals, economists, statisticians and engineers.

Property taxes can be complex and costly, with their fluid and localized requirements carrying the potential for overpayment. Without industry and jurisdiction-specific experience, your company could face excessive, annually recurring property tax expenses.

It is important for asset-intensive companies to understand the value of their holdings, the local taxing jurisdictions and how they function, and the systems, processes, and technology required to manage their ongoing property tax liabilities. Deloitte’s property tax advisory services team can help clients identify potential opportunities to reduce property tax liabilities, quantify issues, analyze planning considerations, and implement programs to proactively manage property tax exposure.

Property taxes can be a significant part of your company’s total state and local indirect tax liability, so it is important to enable accurate and efficient property tax compliance.

Preparing and filing personal property returns is often a complicated and time-consuming process, whether you are managing them in-house or through an outsourced approach. Dedicating more time and resources to this specific function may not be an option, especially for tax departments that are already stretched thin with day-to-day demands. The potential for improving outcomes may be a combination of technology, process efficiencies, tax technical capabilities, and/or reimagined resourcing.

Leveraging our proprietary platforms, ITC and Intela, Deloitte can help you navigate the evolving property tax compliance landscape driven by thousands of tax reporting jurisdictions with different filing and taxability requirements and large volumes of data.  Our process can help streamline the process, reduce reporting risks, provide strategic insights and help taxpayers meet their obligations effectively. 

Complex assets can present challenging property tax issues. Significant annual capital expenditures can yield corresponding annual increases in property tax liabilities. Complex properties such as heavy manufacturing, electric distribution, telecommunications and oil and gas midstream assets, typically cross over multiple jurisdictions. This can further complicate tax reporting.

Property spread over multiple tax jurisdictions often increases the compliance workload and increases risk in assessment tracking and tax bill processing. With these levels of administrative burdens, many companies have fewer resources available for managing property tax assessments and liabilities. The full suite of skills necessary for enhancement of the property tax function and management of expenditures can also be difficult or impractical to maintain in-house. Deloitte Tax’s Complex Property Services team can assist complex property owners with all aspects of property tax. We have practitioners of diverse backgrounds, including former industry personnel and those with deep geographic and industry experience.