How to Complete the California Business Property Statement (Form 571-L)

To complete California Form 571-L, the Business Property Statement, you report the original cost of the taxable personal property and fixtures at your business location as of the January 1 lien date, organized by acquisition year on Schedule A (equipment) and Schedule B (improvements and fixtures), list any property at your site that belongs to others on Part III, sign the statement under penalty of perjury, and file it with your county assessor. The statutory due date is April 1, and the last day to avoid the 10 percent late-filing penalty is May 7.

Before You Start

Two things trigger the filing obligation under Revenue and Taxation Code Section 441. Either you owned taxable personal property with an aggregate cost of $100,000 or more at the location on January 1, or the county assessor mailed you a request to file. If the assessor asked, you file regardless of value.¹

“Aggregate cost” is the combined original purchase price of your taxable personal property at that location, not the depreciated book value. Each business location gets its own statement. A warehouse in one county and a shop in another mean two separate 571-Ls filed with two separate assessors.²

You value everything as it existed at 12:01 a.m. on January 1 of the filing year.³ The statement is due by 5 p.m. on April 1, and the penalty does not attach until after May 7. A form filed or postmarked by May 7 (or the next business day if May 7 falls on a weekend or holiday) is timely.⁴ Miss that date and a mandatory 10 percent penalty applies to the assessed value of any unreported taxable property placed on the roll for the year.⁵

Records to Pull Before You Open the Form

The assessor asks for original cost, not depreciated value. Cost on this form means everything you spent to put the item in service: purchase price plus sales or use tax, freight, and installation.⁶ That figure sometimes lives in several ledger accounts, so verify against invoices where you can.

You will need:

Your fixed asset schedule or capital asset ledger, showing each item, its acquisition date, and its full installed cost.
Purchase invoices and receipts to confirm cost components like freight and tax that may sit in separate accounts.
Lease agreements for equipment you use but do not own, including the lessor’s name and address, annual rent, and the cost new if you have it.
Records of tenant improvements or renovations, with invoices and dates.
An estimate of the average value of consumable supplies on hand as of January 1.

Pull out anything you retired, sold, or removed from the location before January 1. Reporting property you no longer have inflates the assessment and your tax bill.

Part I: General Information

Part I identifies the business. Enter the business type, phone, email, whether you own the underlying land, and the date you began operations at the location. The form also asks where your general ledger and accounting records are physically kept and who the assessor can contact about them.⁶ If any person or entity acquired a controlling interest in your business during the prior calendar year while the business also owned California real property, Part I flags the event and directs you to file Form BOE-100-B separately.

Schedule A and Part II, Line 2: Equipment

Schedule A is where most of the work happens. It covers all business equipment, not just heavy machinery. Office furniture, computers, phones, tools, molds, dies, and jigs all belong on Schedule A alongside production equipment.⁷ A common mistake is treating the schedule as production-only; the reception desk and the network router go here just as much as the CNC machine.

For each equipment category, report the full acquisition cost broken out by the calendar year you acquired the asset. Year of acquisition drives the depreciation factor the assessor applies later, so it matters. Include items that are fully depreciated on your books, because the assessor’s schedule differs from yours and may still assign taxable value. Self-constructed equipment goes in at the appropriate trade-level cost. Do not include routine maintenance and repairs that did not extend an asset’s life or change its use.⁶

Schedule A’s total flows to Line 2 of Part II. Supplies on hand — stationery, cleaning products, spare parts, and similar consumables — are not part of Schedule A. Report their average value as of January 1 on Line 1 of Part II.

Schedule B and Part II, Line 4: Buildings, Improvements, and Fixtures

Schedule B covers buildings, building improvements, leasehold improvements, land improvements, and land itself.⁸ If you rent your space, this is where money you spent on the space goes: new flooring, built-in cabinetry, upgraded electrical, HVAC modifications, and similar tenant improvements. Trade and process fixtures also go on Schedule B.

The form separates structure items from fixtures. Structures house people or property and have no direct connection to your business process: elevators, central heating, fire alarms, sprinkler systems. Fixtures directly serve business operations: process boilers, conveyors, raised computer-room floors, and restaurant equipment like sinks, hoods, and dishwashers.⁶ Both categories land on Schedule B, but the assessor applies different valuation methods to each, so classify carefully.

If you own the real property, report the building structure, tenant improvements, fixtures, land improvements, and the land on Schedule B. The total moves to Line 4 of Part II.

Part III: Property Belonging to Others

Part III captures property at your location that you do not own. Leased copiers, a placed vending machine, lease-purchase equipment — all go here. For each item, provide the type (leased, lease-purchase, capitalized lease, vending, government-owned, or other), year of acquisition, year of manufacture, description and lease or ID number, cost to purchase new, annual rent, whether the lessor or lessee carries the tax obligation, and the lessor’s name and mailing address.⁶

Listing property in Part III does not make you the taxpayer for it. It tells the assessor who is. Leaving it off can trigger double taxation or follow-up inquiries when the county’s records show a gap.

Property You Leave Off the Form

Two exemptions catch people out.

Business inventory is exempt. Tangible personal property held for sale or lease in the ordinary course of business — raw materials, work in process, finished goods — does not go on the form.⁹ The exemption does not extend to items you bought for your own use. Office supplies, furniture, machinery, and tools that stay in your operation are taxable personal property, not inventory, even if you could theoretically sell them. Property actually being leased out or used by you on January 1 also fails to qualify, even if you plan to lease it again later.

Application software is exempt. Storage media is valued as if no programs were on it, except for basic operational programs fundamental to the functioning of a computer. Your accounting suite, design tools, and CRM platform are exempt, unless they were bundled into an unitemized package purchase where the software cost was never broken out separately.³

Signing the Statement

The statement is signed under penalty of perjury. For a corporation, the signature must come from a corporate officer or from an employee or agent designated in writing by the board of directors to sign on the corporation’s behalf.⁴ The signer prints their name, title, and the legal entity name. For electronic filings, authentication methods approved by the Board of Equalization stand in for a wet signature.

Submitting the Form

You can file on paper or electronically.

By mail, print the completed form, sign it, and send it to your county assessor. Use certified mail or request a delivery receipt. That postmark is your proof of timely filing if a penalty dispute arises. A form postmarked by May 7 (or the next business day if May 7 is a weekend or holiday) is timely.

Electronically, most counties participate in e-SDR, a free web portal at calbpsfile.org.¹⁰ You need the Business Identification Number (BIN) that your assessor mails in an annual notification letter. The BIN changes every year, so last year’s code will not work.² If you were in business on January 1 but no letter arrived, contact your assessor’s office to check whether e-filing is available for the account. The portal walks through each section and issues a confirmation receipt when you submit.

Larger operations with many locations across multiple counties can use the full SDR system, which bundles statements into a single XML file for batch upload. It requires special programming or software and is not practical for small businesses.¹¹

After You File

The cost figures you reported are the starting point, not the taxable value. The assessor converts your original cost to a current reproduction cost using index factors, then applies depreciation through “percent good” tables published in Assessors’ Handbook Section 581. An asset shown as 70 percent good has 70 percent of its useful life remaining for valuation purposes.¹² Different tables cover different property types, and the age of the asset drives the factor selected, which is why the acquisition year on Schedule A carries so much weight.

Tax bills typically arrive in late summer or early fall for the fiscal year beginning July 1. If you believe the assessor overvalued your property, you can file an application for changed assessment with the county’s Assessment Appeals Board. The regular window runs July 2 through September 15, extending to November 30 in counties where the assessor does not mail value notices to all property owners by August 1.¹³

Keep the records that support each filing. County assessors run mandatory audit programs under Section 469, with half of required audits drawn from the businesses carrying the largest trade fixture and personal property assessments in the county.¹⁴ Hold onto asset ledgers, purchase receipts, disposal records, and lease agreements for at least four years from the filing date, and longer if an audit is opened.

1
California Legislative Information. California Revenue and Taxation Code 441 – Information From Taxpayer
2
San Mateo County Assessor-County Clerk-Recorder and Elections. Business Property Statement Form 571-L FAQs
3
California State Board of Equalization. Personal Property – Frequently Asked Questions
4
California Legislative Information. California Revenue and Taxation Code 441
5
California Legislative Information. California Revenue and Taxation Code 463
6
California State Board of Equalization. Business Property Statement
7
Santa Clara County Assessor. Instructions – E-File
8
Santa Clara County Assessor. 571-L Business Property Statement Filing Tips
9
Legal Information Institute. California Code of Regulations Title 18 Section 133 – Business Inventory Exemption
10
Contra Costa County. Business Personal Property
11
Alameda County Assessor. Assessment of Business Personal Property
12
California State Board of Equalization. Valuation of Personal Property and Fixtures – Lesson 3
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California Legislative Information. California Revenue and Taxation Code 1603
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California Legislative Information. California Revenue and Taxation Code 469