Every cost seg starts by carving land out of the purchase price, since land can't be depreciated. What I've seen in practice is three ways firms do the split: the tax assessor's land/building ratio, an appraisal, or an engineering estimate built into the study itself.

The split matters because every dollar that lands on land is a dollar that never gets depreciated, so a study that leans heavily on the assessor's ratio can understate the building basis — or overstate it, depending on the county.

Curious what others have seen: which method did your study use, and did your CPA push back on the land number?