For Lessors, Owners of Mobile Assets, and Owners of Customer Premise Assets 

Your Property Tax Jurisdiction Solution For the Entire U.S.
Common issues our clients have shared with us . . . before using our service: 

“We’re concerned about being in compliance with local assessors and collectors.  We’re also concerned about paying the correct amount in property taxes.” 

“We need to include the taxing jurisdiction our asset falls within when we file.  Finding this information can be very difficult and time-consuming.” 

“We need to know, definitively, whether or not our asset falls inside or outside a city’s limits.  Typically, cities tend to have higher tax rates.” 

“We mainly file our returns to the county, which, in some cases, isn’t that difficult.  What’s difficult is managing the enormous amount of tax bills we get back from the taxing districts within the county.” 

“Our current process is very much a manual effort.  We spend too much time assigning tax jurisdictions.” 

“We want a more efficient system.  Our process is tedious and time consuming.” 

“We want to make sure we pay each tax bill timely and correctly.” 

“It’s important that we’re in compliance and that we assign the correct jurisdiction code to our assets.” 

“Our issue is that we have a lot of new acquisitions each year.  Therefore, we spend a lot of time making sure we’re reporting to the correct assessor and managing tax bills.” 

“We’re paying too much money in penalties and we’re concerned that we are paying too much in taxes because of the wrong assignment.” 

“It’s important to be in compliance because if we aren’t, then we’re in violation of the contract we have with our lessee.” 

UPDATE – January 2004
Stopwatch Maps Now Offers Nationwide Coverage
New for the 2004 Tax Season!
Last tax season, Stopwatch Maps successfully offered the Taxography Property Tax Jurisdiction Geo-Referencing Service in the States of Ohio, Indiana, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Virginia. After receiving overwhelming feedback from our clients, state and local assessors, and property tax professionals, Stopwatch Maps has expanded the service to include assessor jurisdictions for all States in which personal property tax returns are required.  In addition, Stopwatch Maps now provides additional information to help tax professionals understand and identify the taxing districts their asset falls within.  This additional information includes the name of each township, village, city, and school district an asset falls within.  This service is now available for 2004 personal property tax return filings across the United States. 

Using sophisticated mapping technology and a proprietary central repository of mapped jurisdiction data, our geo-referencing service is able to append correct jurisdiction information to each of your assets.   Accurately reporting your assets using the Taxography service can increase property tax compliance thereby avoiding late filings, penalties, and audits.

Overview
Taxography Property Tax Jurisdiction Geo-Referencing Service
Our clients use this service to report their assets to the appropriate local assessor, county, township, village, city, and school district within the United States.  Stopwatch Maps will continue to offer the same excellent service tax professionals have been accustomed to receiving . . . now for the entire United States.  All we need an address, city, state, and 5-digit ZIP Code for each record.  48-hour turnaround guaranteed. 

Just three easy steps:
1. Email us your file of addresses in either of the following formats - Excel or dBase
2. Stopwatch Maps will run the Taxography process on your file, appending the correct jurisdiction information to each of your records.
3. The completed file will be emailed back to you within 48-hours. 

For more information, contact Matt LaMartina at 1-800-348-6277.

Taxography:  For Lessors, Owners of Mobile Assets, and Owners of Customer Premise Assets
The Property Tax Jurisdiction Solution for Tax Professionals
Stopwatch Maps is the single source for accurate coding of local assessor jurisdictions as well as the reference data critical to understanding and identifying taxing jurisdictions for taxation purposes.  We work with companies that manage large quantities of physical locations and addresses; therefore, most of our clients have assets at many  locations.   

Stopwatch Maps, a leader in GIS technologies and data solutions, has developed the Taxography Property Tax Jurisdiction Geo-Referencing Service to specifically address the asset allocation issues confronting tax Professionals. Our service is available for states in which personal property tax returns are required.  We’ve developed a unique approach to eliminate the time, burden, and cost of the process of assigning property tax jurisdiction information to your assets.  Our geo-referencing service is able to simplify the process of reporting assets to the correct local assessor, thereby increasing your level of confidence and compliance. Our goal is to make the labor-intensive, time consuming process of accurately assigning jurisdictions to your assets streamlined and simple.

Using sophisticated mapping technology and a proprietary central repository of mapped jurisdiction data, our geo-referencing service is able to append the correct jurisdiction information to each of your assets.  This programmatic approach makes use of spatial programs and precise digital boundaries.  Our experience has shown that correctly assigning your assets to the proper jurisdiction is the simplest way to reduce your tax liability, increase your confidence, and increase your level of compliance.

Proven Methodology
Each State is thoroughly researched over the course of each year, providing our clients with the most comprehensive and accurate property tax jurisdiction information available.  The following example maps detail property tax jurisdictions in the State of North Carolina.

(Click on image for larger view)

Client Example
Many property tax departments assign a single tax jurisdiction to all sites within a city.  Typically, there are multiple jurisdictions within the same zip code, let alone an entire city.  The customer shown below allocated all 2,610 assets (green circles) to the City of Whitehall (shaded orange).  Our analysis concluded there were only 264 sites located within the actual city limits of Whitehall.  The tax rate for Whitehall is higher than the surrounding jurisdictions.  In this example, by assigning the correct tax jurisdiction to the customer’s assets, the average tax bill was reduced by over 25%!

The following map is an overview of client sites incorrectly assigned to the City of Whitehall:

Reducing Tax Compliance Costs
Tax professionals have the responsibility of making sure their company is reporting their assets to the correct local assessor.  No simple task.  In fact, property tax law in some States makes filing to the correct assessor extremely difficult and haphazard.

Our Taxography Property Tax Jurisdiction Geo-Referencing Service allows your tax department to reduce its overall tax compliance costs by providing your tax professionals with accurate local assessor jurisdiction information as well as reference data necessary for understanding individual taxing jurisdictions.  This information is provided for each asset, across the entire country, at a greatly reduced cost per asset. 

Effective Resource Utilization
Our Taxography Property Tax Jurisdiction Geo-Referencing Service maximizes the value of tax department resources. Our service handles jurisdiction allocation issues enabling tax professionals to focus on asset valuation instead of asset allocation.  This reduces the number of headaches associated with tracking down property tax jurisdiction information allowing tax professionals to use their value-added skills to address more significant tax saving opportunities, like making sure your assets are appraised at fair market value.

Reducing Tax Burden
It is common for companies to incorrectly allocate their assets to a jurisdiction with a higher tax rate.  Frequently companies place an asset in a tax jurisdiction based solely on the city name used in the mailing address. This typically results in the asset being incorrectly allocated to a jurisdiction with a higher tax rate since the actual location of the asset may be outside the city limits. Is your company paying too much in property taxes?