Practice · State and local · Ad valorem

If the government owns it, you do not owe tax on it.

Government-contract usage takes assets outside a state’s property tax base. No state may levy ad valorem tax on property the government owns. The work is establishing which assets those are.

Who this is for
Contractors holding government-furnished property, or property to which title has vested in the government
Delivered as
One report: the asset population, the exemption position by jurisdiction, and the filings that claim it

This is the seam most advisers never look at.

Property tax is assessed locally, on whoever the assessor believes owns the asset. Federal acquisition rules can vest title to that same asset in the government while it sits on your floor.

The result is a population of assets a contractor is often taxed on and frequently should not be. Finding it requires reading the contract clauses and the register together, which is the same discipline the rest of this practice runs on.

What the study does

Title, incidence, jurisdiction.

01

Title vesting is established from the contract clauses themselves, including government-furnished property and property to which title passes as costs are incurred.

02

The asset population is reconciled to the register, so the claim rests on identified assets rather than an allocation.

03

The legal incidence of the tax is established, because immunity turns on whether the levy falls on the United States rather than on how the assessor has classified the parcel.

04

Exemption positions are documented to the standard an assessor and, if it comes to it, a reviewing court will expect.

05

Where prior years were overpaid, the refund route for each jurisdiction is identified along with its deadline.

A note on scope

The exemption is federal. The paperwork is local.

That the government’s property cannot be taxed does not vary. What varies is how the exemption is claimed, what a given assessor will ask to see, and the refund route and deadline for years already paid. This work is scoped to the jurisdictions your assets actually sit in.

Two ways to engage

You choose the delivery tier.

Tier 1 — Study and Report

FactorTax delivers the analysis and the filing-ready documentation, built to withstand examination. Your tax provider implements it.

Tier 2 — Study and Implementation

FactorTax delivers the study and implements it end to end, preparing and filing the accounting-method change and signing as practitioner of record under Treasury Circular 230.

Every engagement is a single flat fee, fixed in the engagement letter before work begins. No ranges, no hourly billing, and no fee that moves with the size of the result.

Let’s go!

One register. Two regulators. No remainder.

Start with a scoped Diagnostic, or go straight to FAR Phase 1. Either way, we read the contract side first.