No Trespassing You don't need a rocking chair and a shotgun to keep the IRS off your property--taxwise, anyway.

The start of a new year is an opportune time to take inventoryor your business property and determine what you can do to trim thetaxes owed on those assets. A handful of strategies exist to helpon that front, some easier to accomplish than others.

For the most part, the personal property tax area is one thatgets short shrift, says Joe Huddleston, a partner with accountingfirm Grant Thornton LLP in Nashville, Tennessee. Too often, notesHuddleston, business owners overlook the tax impact of acquiringequipment and property for their businesses. "Businessescapitalize these items for federal tax purposes," he says."Once they've done this, the equipment goes on acompany's fixed-asset rolls and business owners begin to paypersonal property taxes on the assets. Too often, that's thelast time anyone considers them."

But regularly auditing these assets and properly classifyingthem can save you money. Too few business owners realize,Huddleston points out, that it's possible to trim acompany's overall property tax rate by 5 to 15 percent annuallyif an effective tax auditing plan is put into effect.