Ghost Busting: Revitalizing Your Business with Asset Management

Businesses spend considerable time and money tracking their assets and ensuring accurate asset ledgers. Improving the way your business manages fixed assets also means being aware of useful asset life, location/storage, and asset sales and disposal. Being mindful of these factors will lead to greater tax savings, more accurate budgets, and protection from audits.

The Impact 

Tax authorities determine your property tax bills based on the assessed value of the fixed assets documented in your ledger. Maintaining the utmost accuracy in your fixed asset ledger is crucial, as it ensures tax authorities levy fair assessment values and tax liabilities. However, occasionally assets vanish, morphing into "ghosts" within your records. These ghost assets are fixed assets listed in the general ledger but have no physical presence. Whether misplaced, stolen, sold, or deemed unusable by the company, ghost assets pose a threat, potentially eroding productivity and adversely impacting a company's financial standing, all the while influencing tax liabilities.

By thoroughly combing through the ledger, auditors can ensure only existing and functional assets are included in the valuation process. This meticulous examination helps eliminate these ghost assets and ensures your property tax liability reflects the true worth of your current holdings.

Solutions 

To ensure effective asset management within your organization, it is essential to implement robust systems and integrate strong controls into your accounting department. This may involve developing proprietary software tailored to your specific needs or purchasing pre-written software solutions. Additionally, conducting regular physical inventories of your assets is crucial. This includes accurately writing down assets and depreciation figures and verifying that fixed assets are appropriately allocated. 

Collaborating with a tax consultant can provide valuable insights into your assets and tax liabilities. Your tax consultant is your advocate, so do not hesitate to seek their assistance in reviewing your asset ledger. Together, you can work on establishing better internal controls and preparing documentation that will help defend you in case of an audit, thereby effectively managing audit-related risks.

How Can We Help? 

Allyn’s tax team is staffed with seasoned tax professionals experienced in all aspects of Federal, multi-state and local tax compliance and consulting for large US and global corporations. We use that experience to your advantage. 

Allyn files state and local property tax returns in every US taxing jurisdiction. Allyn obtains property tax data, analyzes it for proper classification, cost basis, and exemptions, and ensures timely and accurate property tax return filing and property tax bill payment processing. 

We routinely conduct opportunity reviews in all US states for companies and advise clients with proactive measures to improve their tax compliance. Allyn can review your asset listing and returns, property tax bills, provide onsite property tax reviews, prepare and file returns and manage the payment of property taxes throughout the US. We can manage your tax compliance, create a solid tax process, and provide audit defense for your company. 

Contact us and we can provide a customized cost-effective solution to meet your company’s needs. For further information on Allyn Tax services, please contact: tax@allynintl.com. 

Contributor: Megan Bryarly 

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About Allyn International

Allyn International is dedicated to providing high quality, customer centric services and solutions for the global marketplace. Allyn's core products include transportation management, logistics sourcing, freight forwarding, supply chain consulting, tax management and global trade compliance. Allyn clients range from small local businesses to Fortune 500 firms. Allyn conducts business in more than 20 languages and has extensive experience in both developed and emerging markets. Highly trained experts are positioned throughout North America, Europe and Asia and Allyn regional headquarters are strategically located in Fort Myers FL USA, Shanghai P.R. CHINA and Prague, CZECH REPUBLIC. For more information, go to www.allynintl.com.