Form 571-L California Business Property Statement: Deadlines, Filing, and Penalties

Form 571-L is California’s Business Property Statement, filed each year with your County Assessor to report the cost of equipment, supplies, fixtures, leasehold improvements, and other business personal property you owned as of January 1. The signed statement is due April 1, and anything filed after 5:00 p.m. on May 7 is hit with a mandatory 10 percent penalty.¹ What you report here feeds into a separate unsecured property tax bill that arrives in the summer.

Who Has to File

Revenue and Taxation Code Section 441 requires every person or legal entity owning taxable business personal property with a total acquisition cost of $100,000 or more to file a statement each year.² The threshold looks at original cost before any depreciation. A business that bought $80,000 in computers and $25,000 in furniture over several years is already over the line, even if those items are nearly written off on the books.

Below that threshold, you still have to file if the County Assessor sends you a request. Ignoring the request lets the assessor estimate your property using industry data, and those estimates usually run high.²

Taxable business personal property is the physical equipment you use to operate: computers, machinery, restaurant and medical equipment, furniture, tools, supplies on hand. Leasehold improvements count. Land, buildings, and inventory held for sale in the ordinary course of business do not.³

The Three Dates That Matter

January 1 — Lien Date. Report everything you own or hold at the location as of 12:01 a.m. on January 1. Equipment bought December 30 goes on this year’s form. Equipment bought January 2 waits until next year.⁴
April 1 — Filing Deadline. The signed form must be with the County Assessor by 5:00 p.m.
May 7 — Penalty Date. Statements filed between April 2 and 5:00 p.m. on May 7 are late but avoid the 10 percent penalty. After May 7, the penalty is automatic. If May 7 falls on a weekend or legal holiday, the deadline moves to the next business day.¹

Filling Out the Form

You can download a blank form from your County Assessor’s website, or wait for the mailed version, which comes with your account number already assigned. Before you start, pull your fixed asset register, purchase invoices, and any lease agreements. The instructions warn that the statement is subject to audit, so what you enter needs to be defensible from your records.⁵

Part I: General Information

Business name, address, type of activity, and contact details. Part I also asks whether the business has had a change in ownership or a change in control (for example, any party acquiring more than 50 percent of a corporation’s voting stock). Answer carefully; a reportable change in control can trigger a full reassessment of the property.⁵

Part II: Property Belonging to You

Part II is where you enter dollar figures across five lines:

Line 1 — Supplies on hand at current replacement cost (stationery, cleaning products, fuel, chemicals, service-practice supplies). Do not include raw materials that become part of a product you sell.⁵
Line 2 — Total cost of all machinery, furniture, computers, and other equipment. The year-by-year breakdown goes on Schedule A.
Line 3 — Equipment you own that is out on lease, rental, or conditional sale to someone else. Equipment held for lease that has never been used and that you do not intend to use is exempt.⁵
Line 4 — Total cost of buildings, building improvements, leasehold improvements, land improvements, and land development you own at the location. The year-by-year breakdown goes on Schedule B.
Line 5 — Construction in progress: unfinished improvements or equipment installations not yet assigned to the categories above. Attach an itemized list and enter the total.⁵

Part III: Property Belonging to Others

If someone else’s equipment sits on your premises (a leased copier, a vendor’s vending machine, a third-party display rack), report the owner’s name and address so the assessor can reach the actual taxpayer. Report your own property on someone else’s premises here as well.

Schedules A and B

These schedules break Lines 2 and 4 down by the calendar year each asset was acquired. The acquisition year tells the assessor which depreciation factor to apply from the standardized valuation tables.

Report the full original cost of each asset: 100 percent of what you actually paid, including sales tax, use tax, freight, and installation.⁵ Do not enter the depreciated book value from your federal return. An asset that is fully depreciated for federal purposes still gets reported at full original cost if it is still in use on the lien date. The assessor runs its own depreciation schedule, which is often more generous than federal MACRS for older items, and you only get the benefit of it when the item is on the form.

Some counties include an Alternate Schedule A with pre-printed asset categories. If yours does, complete it as directed and carry the total to the matching line in Part II.

How and Where to Submit

File with the County Assessor in each county where you own taxable personal property. Multi-county operations file a separate statement in each county.⁵

By mail: print, sign, and send the form to your County Assessor. The postmark counts as the filing date, so a May 7 postmark is timely even if the envelope arrives later. Keep a copy.

Online: most counties accept electronic filing through a statewide portal. You need your assessor account number and a Business Identification Number (BIN) that changes each year; both are printed on the form your county mails you. The portal issues a confirmation receipt, which is your proof of timely filing.

Multi-county filers can use the Standard Data Record (SDR) system, a statewide platform that lets you upload asset data once and have it distributed to each relevant county. You need to register and verify your account numbers and location codes before the first submission.⁶ The deadline is the same whichever method you use.

Penalties for Filing Late or Not at All

Missing May 7 triggers a mandatory penalty of 10 percent of the assessed value of the unreported property, added directly to the current tax roll.⁷ That is 10 percent of assessed value, not 10 percent of the tax bill, which makes it hurt more than it first sounds.

If you don’t file at all, the assessor is required to estimate your property using whatever information is available and then add the same 10 percent penalty on top of the estimate.⁶ Because the estimate relies on industry averages, it tends to overstate what you actually hold. Filing a few days late and accepting the penalty still beats skipping the filing and getting both a penalty and an inflated valuation.

The Unsecured Tax Bill That Follows

Once the assessor processes your statement, the reported costs run through county depreciation tables to produce an assessed value. The tax rate is roughly 1 percent of assessed value, pushed slightly higher in most jurisdictions by voter-approved bonds and local levies.⁸

Unsecured property tax bills are generally mailed in July and are due by 5:00 p.m. on August 31. If August 31 falls on a weekend, the deadline moves to the next business day. Missing it adds a 10 percent penalty. If the bill stays unpaid for two more months after that, an additional 1.5 percent monthly interest charge begins to accrue until the balance is cleared.⁹ Unpaid bills can also be referred to county collections, which adds its own fees.

One point that catches new owners off guard: unsecured property taxes are not prorated. Open a business on March 1 or close one on June 30, and you still owe tax for the full fiscal year based on what you owned on the January 1 lien date.³

If You Disagree With the Assessment

Start by calling the assessor’s office. Many valuation disputes resolve informally once you provide a purchase receipt showing a lower cost, evidence that an asset was disposed of before the lien date, or similar documentation.

If that doesn’t work, file a formal appeal with your county’s Assessment Appeals Board. The standard filing window for regular assessments runs from July 2 through November 30. If the final day falls on a weekend or holiday, an application postmarked the next business day is timely.¹⁰ Some counties use the state Board of Equalization’s form; others have their own version. Check with your county clerk before filing.¹¹

Records to Keep

The instructions state plainly that the form is subject to audit, and county assessors are required to audit business records on a regular basis. Treat each filing as something you may need to defend. For every asset you report, hold on to:

Purchase invoices or contracts showing original cost, date, and vendor
Freight and installation records supporting the total cost you entered
Lease agreements for equipment you lease to or from others
Disposal records showing when and how assets were sold, scrapped, or moved out of the county
Prior-year 571-L filings so you can track what changed year to year

Four years past the filing date is a reasonable retention window for most audit timelines. If an auditor finds unreported property, the assessor can add both the missing value and a penalty to the roll, and that combination is far harder to unwind after the fact than an accurate filing would have been to prepare.

1
Justia Law. California Code Revenue and Taxation Code 441-470
2
California Legislative Information. California Code Revenue and Taxation Code 441
3
San Mateo County Assessor-County Clerk-Recorder and Elections. Business Property Statement Form 571-L FAQs
4
California Tax Service Center. Property Tax Function Important Dates
5
California State Board of Equalization. Sample BOE-571-L Form and Instructions
6
Santa Clara County Assessor. 571-L Business Property Statement Filing
7
California Legislative Information. California Code Revenue and Taxation Code 463
8
Contra Costa County. Unsecured Property Taxes
9
Sonoma County Auditor-Controller-Treasurer-Tax Collector. Due Dates and Penalties
10
County of Los Angeles Assessment Appeals Board. Assessment Appeals Board
11
California State Board of Equalization. Assessment Appeals