Indiana Personal Property Tax: $2M Exemption, Filing, and Appeals

The Indiana business personal property tax applies to tangible assets a business uses to produce income, but for the January 1, 2026 assessment date, businesses with less than $2,000,000 in total acquisition costs within a single county are exempt from the tax entirely.¹ Even if you qualify for the exemption, you generally still have to file a return the first year you claim it. Skipping a required return brings a penalty starting at $25 and climbing to as much as 20% of the tax due on unreported property.²

What Property Is Taxed

Indiana taxes tangible personal property used in a trade or business or held to produce income: machinery, office furniture, computers, shelving, tools, business-titled vehicles, and similar physical assets. Land and buildings are real property and taxed separately. Household goods and personal-use vehicles aren’t taxed at all.

The line between real and personal property can shift thousands of dollars in assessed value. Movable items that weren’t built into the structure are generally personal property. Equipment bolted down is judged by how firmly it’s attached, whether it serves the building or a production process, and whether the owner meant it to be permanent. A boiler heating a building is usually real property; a boiler feeding a manufacturing line is personal property.

Some categories fall outside the standard business personal property return entirely: mobile homes assessed under a separate chapter of Indiana law, personal property held purely as an investment, and assets owned by regulated public utilities assessed under different rules.³

The $2,000,000 Exemption Starting in 2026

Before 2026, the exemption threshold was $80,000 in acquisition cost within a county. For the January 1, 2026 assessment date, that jumps to $2,000,000.¹ If your total original acquisition cost of business personal property in a county is under $2,000,000, you owe no personal property tax on those assets in that county.

The measurement is acquisition cost, not market value or depreciated value. Add up what you originally paid for every asset at every location within one county and compare the total to $2,000,000. Depreciation doesn’t factor in at this stage. The threshold is applied county by county, so a business operating in more than one Indiana county tests the total separately in each.

Qualifying doesn’t automatically excuse you from filing. To claim the exemption the first time, check the exemption box on Form 103-Short (or Form 103-Long), enter your total acquisition cost, and file Form 104 alongside it.⁴ Once you’ve filed and claimed the exemption in a prior year and you continue to qualify, no return is required in later years. If your acquisition costs later cross the $2,000,000 line, the exemption ends and you must file a full return reporting all assets.

Forms and the May 15 Deadline

The assessment date for all Indiana property is January 1. You report what you owned on that date, and the return is due by May 15.⁴

There are two main return forms. Form 103-Short works for most businesses and is filed alongside Form 104. Form 103-Long is required if your assessed personal property exceeds $150,000, if you’re a manufacturer or processor, if you’re claiming deductions beyond the enterprise zone or standard investment deduction, or if you need special adjustments for equipment not yet in service, permanently retired equipment, or abnormal obsolescence.⁵

Indiana does not grant automatic extensions. You can request a 30-day extension in writing from the township or county assessor, but it must be requested and approved before May 15. Once approved, the extended date becomes your official due date for penalty purposes.

How the Tax Is Calculated Above the Threshold

For businesses over the exemption, Indiana assesses personal property at “true tax value” using a cost approach with standardized depreciation tables published by the Department of Local Government Finance.

You group your depreciable assets into one of four pools based on federal tax life.⁶

Pool 1: assets with a federal tax life of 1 to 4 years.
Pool 2: assets with a federal tax life of 5 to 8 years.
Pool 3: assets with a federal tax life of 9 to 12 years.
Pool 4: assets with a federal tax life of 13 years or longer.

Within each pool, you apply the DLGF’s true tax value percentage to each asset’s adjusted cost based on its acquisition year. Newer assets carry higher percentages; older assets step down. Indiana imposes a 30% floor, so no asset can be depreciated below 30% of its adjusted cost regardless of age.⁶ Long-held equipment therefore never fully depreciates for property tax purposes, even if you’ve written it off completely on your federal return.

Penalties for Late or Missing Returns

Indiana’s penalty structure is tiered.²

Miss the May 15 deadline: the county auditor adds a $25 penalty to your next property tax installment.
Still unfiled more than 30 days after the due date but filed by November 15: an additional penalty of 10% of the taxes due on the unreported property, capped at $10,000.
Filed after November 15: the additional penalty rises to 20% of taxes due, capped at $50,000.

These penalties apply whether or not you’ve filed an appeal on the underlying assessment. Active-duty military personnel covered by the federal Servicemembers Civil Relief Act are exempt.²

If you never file, the assessor doesn’t just wait. Under IC 6-1.1-3-15, the assessor can place an estimated assessment on your business using whatever information is available, and estimates tend to run high. You’ll get a Form 113/PP notice and can challenge it, but from a weaker starting position. The assessor can reach back up to 10 years for unfiled returns.⁷

Deliberately underreporting or filing a false return moves the exposure from civil to criminal. Indiana’s fraud statute makes it a crime to create a false impression or submit a misleading document to obtain a benefit you’re not entitled to, including tax benefits.⁸ A conviction starts as a Class A misdemeanor and can escalate with the dollar amounts involved. Filing a verified return you know to be materially false separately carries perjury-level penalties under the personal property assessment regulations.

Unpaid personal property taxes can also result in a tax lien against your business assets, which appears on business credit reports and can affect loans, insurance premiums, and supplier terms.

Deductions Worth Knowing

Businesses in a designated enterprise zone or entrepreneur and enterprise district can deduct the increase in assessed value that results from a qualifying investment in real or personal property. The deduction applies for up to 10 years under IC 6-1.1-45.⁹ It requires approval from the local fiscal body and is claimed with the return on Form 103-Long, which is why enterprise zone businesses generally use the long form even when short-form values would otherwise apply.

Form 103-Long also handles adjustments for equipment not yet placed in service, special tooling, permanently retired equipment, and abnormal obsolescence.⁵ If specific equipment has lost value faster than the standard depreciation tables reflect, an abnormal obsolescence claim is worth pursuing, with documentation of the functional or economic reasons for the additional loss.

Payment Dates Are Separate from Filing

The return deadline and the tax bill are two different dates. For 2026, Indiana property taxes are payable in two installments: May 10, 2026 and November 10, 2026.¹⁰ Missing an installment triggers interest on the unpaid balance. Track May 15 as your filing date and May 10 and November 10 as your payment dates.

How to Appeal an Assessment

If you disagree with your assessment, Indiana provides a structured appeals path that starts informally and can end in court. Timing matters at every step.

File Form 130 Within 45 Days

You have 45 days from the date the county mails your assessment notice to file a written appeal using Form 130 with the township assessor, or the county assessor if no township assessor serves your area.¹¹ Filing triggers a required preliminary informal meeting with the assessing official, and many disputes get resolved there. Results are recorded on Form 134.

County PTABOA Hearing

If the informal meeting doesn’t produce agreement, the case moves to the county Property Tax Assessment Board of Appeals. The PTABOA must hold a hearing within 180 days of the original appeal filing and must give you at least 30 days’ notice of the date.¹² You can present evidence, and no formal appraisal is required. Failing to appear without an excuse brings a $50 penalty. If the PTABOA doesn’t hold a hearing within the 180-day window, you can bypass it and appeal directly to the Indiana Board of Tax Review.

Indiana Board of Tax Review

The Board conducts a more formal review of the evidence, and you can submit an amended return as evidence during the proceedings if your original filing contained errors.⁷

Indiana Tax Court

If you’re still unsatisfied after the Board’s final determination, you can petition the Indiana Tax Court within 45 days. The Tax Court has exclusive jurisdiction over Indiana tax disputes and reviews the administrative record to determine whether the Board’s decision followed proper procedures, rested on substantial evidence, and didn’t violate a constitutional or statutory principle.¹³ It’s a legal review rather than a fresh factual hearing, so the evidentiary record built at the earlier stages is what the court works from.

1
Department of Local Government Finance. 2025 Legislation Affecting Assessment Matters
2
Indiana General Assembly. Indiana Code 6-1.1-37-7 – Personal Property Return Various Penalties
3
Justia. Indiana Code Title 6, Article 1.1, Chapter 3 – Procedures for Personal Property Assessment
4
Department of Local Government Finance. Personal Property
5
Department of Local Government Finance. DLGF Forms – Section: Personal Property Forms
6
Department of Local Government Finance. Level II Personal Property
7
Department of Local Government Finance. Personal Property Assessments
8
Indiana General Assembly. Indiana Code 35-43-5-4 – Fraud
9
Justia. Indiana Code Title 6, Article 1.1, Chapter 45 – Enterprise Zone Investment Deduction
10
Department of Local Government Finance. Property Tax Due Dates
11
Indiana General Assembly. Indiana Code 6-1.1-15-1.1 – Taxpayers Appeal of an Assessment Exceptions Prohibited Claims Deadlines
12
Department of Local Government Finance. Procedure for Appeal of Assessment
13
Indiana Judicial Branch. About the Tax Court