I’ve been banging the drum recently here and here about the opportunity for corporate taxpayers to push for lower property taxes this year, given the massive declines in commercial property values in the past couple of years.

Now a new study from audit firm Crowe Horwath suggests one more reason to look into this: County and local tax assessors’ budgets (and likely their staffs) are shrinking, and they may be way behind on providing realistic valuations of properties in their jurisdictions. more

Are we in the very early stages of the birth of a world-wide tax system?

As I noted a couple of weeks ago, tax authorities around the world are working together more frequently and more effectively on enforcement issues. On the legislative side, the harmonization of national tax codes is well under way in Europe. Globally, tax treaties are becoming de rigeur, even for traditional haven states like the Cayman Islands, the British Virgin Islands, and the Bahamas, all of which have struck deals in the past couple of years to stay off the OECD’s “grey list” of countries that have not fully implemented internationally agreed tax standards.

Tax harmonization, whether regional or global, can’t come fast enough for the majority of tax leaders, judging by the results of a new survey from Taxand, a global independent tax organization. more

A couple of weeks ago, I noted that with commercial property prices still tumbling, companies have an opportunity to press for lower property tax evaluations. I asked Jim Kane, managing director with tax and business advisory firm True Partners Consulting, to provide some tips for a company looking to take a proactive approach to reducing property tax. Here’s his Top 5:

1. Have a property tax process in place that addresses compliance, valuation and appeals. Whether a company chooses to outsource the property tax function or retain a property tax professional, having a consistent property tax approach ensures that the organization is working toward only paying its fair share of taxes. more

Word coming out of Washington today is that there’s some sign of movement in the budget/debt-limit talks at the White House, with President Obama floating the idea of a thorough reform of the individual and corporate tax code that will aim at reducing income tax rates while closing various “loopholes.” Negotiations look likely to continue through the weekend.

Over in the Senate, one of the most celebrated corporate-tax loopholes (so called — it’s much better described as a tax expenditure) edged closer to extinction as three Senators struck a deal to repeal the 45-cents-per-gallon tax credit for ethanol producers. A symbolic vote to end the credit passed 73-27 last month in the Senate, Reuters reports.

Whether it will fly in the House is anybody’s guess at this point, though it seems doubtful given the Republicans’ willingness to go to the wall to defend even the most minor tax breaks for businesses in the past couple of weeks, even the special treatment given to the financing of corporate jets (which Mr. Obama has been using to beat the GOP over the head all week long). How come nobody in the GOP is speaking out about how using the tax code to engineer specific business behaviors is a really, really bad idea? more

Commercial property values in most parts of the country have seen a precipitous decline since the market peaked in 2007. The latest figures from Moody’s, released last week, show a 3.7 percent fall in actual transaction prices in April, bringing the firm’s national all-property aggregate index down to around 50 percent of its value at the peak. That’s the lowest point since the company started tracking the data in 2000. (Real estate consulting firm Real Capital Analytics offers the full Moody’s report here in pdf form.)

The news is not all bad; Moody’s sees strong signs of recovery in major markets such as San Francisco, New York, and Washington. And transaction volume nationwide is on the increase — a very good sign for a potential broad recovery.

The other silver lining in all this, of course, is the opportunity for companies to press for lower property taxes. After all, taxes steadily increased when the market was booming — why shouldn’t they go down now that property prices have declined? more