In March of 2004, in the State of California, I purchased a new Cessna aircraft.

At the time of purchase, I paid the California state sales tax.

I realize, there is a yearly personal property tax on my aircraft.

My question is:
What agency will send the tax bill:
What time of the year will they send it:
How is the dollar amount of the tax computed:

Hello, Clicker!

As one of our regular customers, you know that Google Answers does not
provide professional tax advice.  The information below is general
information. It is not, and should not be taken as, professional tax
advice.

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The agency that will send the tax bill is your local county tax assessor.

The aircraft will be assessed based on its current market value on
January 1, 2005. Counties send out "aircraft statements" to aircraft
owners.  On the statement, you will provide details about your
airplane (year, make, model, engine hours, airframe hours, etc.) and
they assess it based on that information.  Some counties require the
statement to be returned by April 1.

Counties typically mail the tax bills of aircraft (and other
"unsecured personal property") between March and June.  Your payment
will be due no later than August 31.

The California Board of Equalization has a comprehensive 46-page guide
on this subject (there's a sample "County Aircraft Statement" in
Appendix A, page 33-34):
"Assessment of General Aircraft"
http://www.boe.ca.gov/proptaxes/pdf/ah577final2003.pdf

(This document is in PDF format, so the Adobe Acrobat Reader is
required. If you don't have that, visit:
http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/readstep2.html )


I don't know your county, but many county assessor have information on
this subject on their web sites.

Examples:

San Joaquin County Assessor
http://207.104.50.49/assessor/boatair.htm

Marin County Assessor: Boats & Aircraft
http://www.co.marin.ca.us/depts/AR/main/Business_Property.cfm#BOATS

Contra Costa County
http://www.co.contra-costa.ca.us/depart/assr/Aircraft.html
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search strategy:
california assessor aircraft
"general aircraft" site:boe.ca.gov

I hope this helps. If anything is unclear, please let me know via the
request clarification feature. Thanks.

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Clarification of Answer by juggler-ga on 27 Sep 2004 13:14 PDT

I should also mention that the tax is rate is typically around 1.1
percent of the assessed value.

From San Joaquin County:

"What is the tax rate on personal property?
Throughout California, the property tax rate 1% of assessed value
(also applies to real property) plus any bonded indebtedness voted in
by the taxpayers. In San Joaquin County, the average overall tax rate
including bond debt averages perhaps 1.1%."
http://www.co.san-joaquin.ca.us/assessor/busprop.htm#What%20is%20the%20tax%20rate%20on%20personal%20property

Hi juggler-ga:
Thank you for the research.
Five stars for a five star answer.
clicker5-ga