If you’re operating your business in multiple states—or are contemplating putting down roots in another state—tax policies and obligations are probably already top of mind. Particularly if you’re planning to invest a substantial amount of money into a new facility, you’ll want to have a good understanding of your tax burden before you commit. But even if you’re already located in more than one state, you and your tax team are likely spending a lot of time keeping track of bills and deadlines for your various locations. Whichever situation you’re currently in, you need a resource that can help you make sense of it all.

Like every industry, property tax has its share of conferences. Whatever you’d like to know more about, whether it’s real estate, personal property, business valuation, compliance, depreciation, tax technology, or anything else, there’s probably a conference that covers it. You’ll also find conferences that specialize in certain industries (like the Broadband Tax Institute’s annual conference for internet and cable companies) and ones that focus on taxation in certain regions (like the Texas Association of Assessing Officers conference). There’s no shortage of learning opportunities for those looking to expand their knowledge and skills.

Most organizations would take advantage of all available means to reduce their property tax bills—if only they knew about them (or had time to spend applying them).

If you’ve been reading our blog, you already know that the business personal property tax cycle is filled with complexities, whether you’re a business with one location or several. If you have 500 or more locations, keeping up with paperwork, information tracking, and due dates can be downright labyrinthine—never mind having enough time to put a case together for appeals (unless you’re taking advantage of all the tools at your disposal, which we’ll get into later).

Businesses can easily get bogged down in property tax data. County addresses, deadlines, valuation methods, depreciation tables, tax ratios… there are too many data types to list. And while there are common pieces of information people look for, the options are limited when it comes to places to look. That’s because a good chunk of this data varies by jurisdiction. So instead of having central repositories for “property tax information,” a single county website may be your only option. And even finding that isn’t quite as easy as it seems (we’ll get to that later).