How to Complete the LAT 5 Form: Louisiana Personal Property Report

To complete the LAT 5 form, pull your depreciation schedule and monthly inventory figures, list every tangible business asset (including fully depreciated items) with its original acquisition cost and year acquired, report leased or consigned property separately with the lessor’s contact information, sign the sworn declaration, and deliver the form to your parish assessor by April 1 or within 45 days of receiving it, whichever is later.¹ The form goes to the assessor in the parish where the property physically sits.²

Make Sure the LAT 5 Is the Right Form

The LAT 5 covers general business assets: inventory, merchandise, furniture, fixtures, machinery, equipment, leasehold improvements, and leased or consigned property. If your business is a loan or finance company, a cellular carrier, a cable operator, a watercraft owner, an oil and gas operator, a drilling contractor, or a pipeline company, the Louisiana Administrative Code sends you to a different form in the LAT series.³ Oil and gas surface equipment, for example, goes on the LAT 12 under separate instructions.⁴ Businesses claiming an exemption under Article VII, Section 21(F) of the Louisiana Constitution file an LAT 5A alongside the LAT 5 to break out the exempt and taxable portions.

What to Pull Together Before You Open the Form

The LAT 5 asks for data you cannot reconstruct from memory. Gather it first.

Your fixed asset list or depreciation schedule, the same one you use for your federal income tax return. It needs to show every tangible asset, including items that are fully depreciated but still in service — the LAT 5 instructions require those to be reported.
Original acquisition cost for each item: the purchase price plus shipping, installation, taxes, and any fees paid to put the asset into service.⁵
Year of acquisition for each item. Month helps, but year is the minimum the assessor needs to apply the correct depreciation multiplier.⁶
Monthly inventory figures for the prior year, broken out by merchandise, raw materials, work in progress, finished goods, and supplies.⁷
Lessor information for every piece of equipment, furniture, or inventory you use but do not own: full name, mailing address, and phone number.
IRS Schedule A or Schedule C, if you file one. The LAT 5 instructions ask you to attach a copy.

The IRS tells businesses to keep property records for as long as they own the asset and through the period of limitations for the year they dispose of it.⁸

Section 2: Furniture and Fixtures

List every piece individually, including fully depreciated items still in use. Each line needs a description, the year you acquired it, and the original cost. An itemized depreciation schedule from your accounting records can stand in for completing the table by hand, provided it carries the same three data points.

Section 3: Machinery and Equipment

Same approach as Section 2, this time for machinery and equipment. Keep machinery separate from furniture. The two categories have different expected useful lives in the Tax Commission’s depreciation tables, so different multipliers apply.⁵

Section 4: Leasehold Improvements and Miscellaneous Property

If you built out leased space, added partitions, or installed flooring, list each improvement with the year completed and the cost. Signs, safes, trailers, and other miscellaneous property also belong here.

Section 5: Leased, Rented, and Consigned Property

This is where businesses most often slip up. Any equipment, furniture, or goods you use but do not own gets listed here with the lessor’s name, address, and phone number. Skip this section and the assessor will assume you own everything on the premises and assess you on it.⁷ Listing the items properly also prevents a dual assessment where both you and the leasing company are taxed on the same property. If you are the leasing company, add the lessee’s name and the location of the property.

Don’t Substitute Your Federal Depreciated Value

A common and costly error: reducing the cost on the LAT 5 to match the net book value on your federal return after a Section 179 deduction or bonus depreciation. Louisiana valuation starts from the full original acquisition cost. The assessor applies the Tax Commission’s composite multiplier tables to that cost, and those tables already build in depreciation based on the asset’s age and class.⁵ Reporting a lower starting number does not lower your assessment. It triggers questions from the assessor or prompts them to substitute an estimate of their own.

Signing and Submitting

Sign the declaration at the bottom of the form before you send it. The signature is made under the penalties of RS 14:125, which allows a fine of up to $500 or imprisonment for up to one year, or both, for filing a false report.¹ Attach your depreciation schedule, any supporting breakdowns, and any IRS schedules the instructions ask for.

The form must reach your parish assessor by April 1, or within 45 days after you received it, whichever is later. The 45-day window matters most for new businesses that get their first form after mid-February. You have three practical ways to submit:

In person at the parish assessor’s office. Ask for a stamped copy as your receipt.
By mail. Use certified mail with return receipt so you have proof of the mailing date if the deadline is ever questioned.
Online, where available. Many parishes now offer electronic filing portals through the assessor’s website and send back a timestamped confirmation.

You can download the LAT 5 from the Louisiana Tax Commission at latax.la.gov or from your parish assessor’s website.

What Happens If You File Late, Wrong, or Not at All

Two consequences follow a missed deadline or a false report, and they stack.

You lose your appeal rights. The form itself warns that failure to file waives your right to appeal the assessor’s final valuation under RS 47:1992.¹ If the assessor’s number is wrong and you did not file, you cannot challenge it.

You can also be hit with a 10 percent penalty on the tax due. RS 47:2330 imposes that penalty when an owner intentionally fails to file, or files a report that is false, fraudulent, or grossly incorrect with intent to defraud. The statute looks at the circumstances to decide intent. Paying ad valorem tax on the same property in a prior year, or signing a return receipt for the assessor’s mailing, both count as evidence that the failure was deliberate rather than an oversight.⁹

If you submit nothing, the assessor is authorized to compile a property list from the best information available and assign their own valuations.¹⁰ Those estimates almost always run higher than what you would have reported, because the assessor has no reason to give you the benefit of the doubt. Filing accurately and on time is the only way to keep control of the number.

1
Louisiana Tax Commission. LAT 5 – Inventory, Merchandise, Etc. Personal Property Tax Form
2
Justia. Louisiana Code 47-1952 – Place and Time of Listing and Assessment
3
Legal Information Institute. Louisiana Administrative Code tit. 61 V-307 – Personal Property Report Forms
4
Legal Information Institute. Louisiana Administrative Code tit. 61 V-907 – Valuation of Oil, Gas, and Other
5
Legal Information Institute. Louisiana Administrative Code tit. 61 V-2501 – Guidelines for Ascertaining the Fair Market Value of Office Furniture and Equipment, Machinery and Equipment and Other Assets
6
Orleans Parish Assessor’s Office. Business Personal Property Self Reporting Form Frequently Asked Questions
7
Lafayette Parish Assessor. Louisiana Tax Commission LAT 5 Personal Property Report
8
Internal Revenue Service. Louisiana Revised Statutes Tit. 47, Sect. 2330
10
Justia. Louisiana Revised Statutes 47-1957 – Listing and Assessing Of