what is tangible personal property 
tangible personal property is a tax term describing personal property that can be felt or touched and physically relocated such as furniture office equipment machinery and livestock it is always depreciated over either a five or seven year period using straight line depreciation but is eligible for accelerated depreciation as well and is taxed in several countries including large chunks of the u s understanding tangible personal propertytangible personal property is the opposite of real property in a sense as real property is immovable it can also be touched unlike intangible personal property 1tangible personal property or tpp as it is sometimes called includes items such as furniture machinery cell phones computers and collectibles intangibles on the other hand consist of things that cannot be seen or touched like patents and copyrights most states impose property taxes on tangible personal property these are collected on top of the taxes applied to real property like land and buildings to help fund various services such as schools roads and emergency medical services tangible personal property taxes are regulated at the state level but are levied primarily by local governments they can vary considerably by jurisdiction 12some states don t charge a tangible personal property tax and those that do may only apply it to certain items such as personal property that is valued above a certain threshold or only used for business purposes 2