BENTONVILLE — Benton County is taking Geographic Information Systems technology into the field of tax assessment.

County Assessor Bear Chaney is working with the county GIS Department to increase the efficiency of his department, specifically in the area of business personal property tax assessment.

Chaney said the peculiarities of Arkansas’ property tax system often confuse operators of new businesses.

“Arkansas is one of the few states that still does business personal property tax,” Chaney said. “A lot of vendors, for example, come from other states and they don’t know they’re supposed to do this.”

Chaney said the state requires businesses to list and assess property, including vehicles and office equipment like computers, desks and phones. If a company leases equipment, he said, the company they lease from may be responsible for the tax. Copiers are a type of equipment commonly leased, he said.

“We need to know what they’re leasing,” Chaney said. “If they don’t own it, it may be in their contract that the person they’re leasing from has to pay the tax.”

Chaney said his office is mailing out about 10,000 information packets to businesses in the county to remind them of the requirements. By law, all businesses in the county must assess their assets each year, he said. Jan. 1 is the valuation date and May 31 is the assessment date.

Elizabeth Bowen, county general services administrator, is working with Chaney’s office to integrate the GIS technology into the tax assessment process.

Bowen said the GIS Department has developed a computer program that allows assessors in the field to access information using their iPads. Assessors can determine if a business already has been located and entered into the system. If no information is found, assessors can enter the basic information themselves while still in the field to start the assessment process. The program allows database searches by names of businesses, addresses or parcel numbers.

The program also can generate aerial photos of sections of the county and allows assessors to identify sites of businesses that may not be on the rolls. The program will then generate the shortest route for the assessor to drive in order to visit all of the locations. If an assessor completes just a part of the list on one day, Bowen said, the program will generate a route for the next day’s work that covers the remaining sites. The program also allows assessors to measure the size of buildings in feet or meters to determine the square footage of a building.

Bowen said the program shows the locations of businesses and color-codes them to show whether they have been assessed for the year and whether an assessor has visited the site. She said the staff is still working on the program and plans to add a feature that will allow assessors to take pictures of business locations with their iPads and upload them while they are still in the field.

Chaney said he thinks Benton County officials are doing a good job at locating businesses and getting them to comply with the state’s property tax laws.

According to information from Tax Collector Gloria Peterson’s office, in tax year 2009 the county billed businesses for a total of $9,107,870.85. Of that, the county eventually collected all but $101,457,14. In tax year 2011, according to Peterson’s office, the county billed businesses for $10,151,746.44. Of that amount, the county collected all but $202,339.21.

Chaney said most businesses voluntarily assess their personal business property once they understand the law. He said there were 400 businesses last year for which officials estimated taxes.