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NJ Senate moves to prevent abuse by ‘fake farmers’
State Senate moves to prevent abuse by ‘fake farmers’
Legislators took a step closer Thursday to making it harder for people to call themselves farmers for the sake of tax breaks.
The Senate’s Environment and Energy Committee unanimously passed a bill that doubles the revenue a land owner must make from a farmed product in order to get a 98 percent property tax break.
The annual income level, if the bill passes the full Legislature, would increase from $500 to $1,000. (Patberg, The Record)
http://www.northjersey.com/
The politicians pissed the point again. They are worried that they will lose tax revenue if landowners use this tax break. But you cannot use this break for a personal residence on improved property – just the portion that is open space. With the recent uproar over DiPiero’s selling out to Wegmans, the people cry ‘Save our farms’, however, it is the boneheads in government that value tax $$$ over open space. Maybe they should stop pi$$ing away so much money and landowners could keep their small farms instead of selling because the towns have become so desperate in collecting taxes on everything.