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.)