Updated February 27, 2017
Posted February 27, 2017
Property taxes in New Jersey are the highest in the nation. Since 2000, they have doubled and have risen at over twice the rate of inflation. No wonder people are forced to move; no wonder we have the highest foreclosure rate in the nation.
Property taxpayers suffer because raising this tax is the path of least resistance. When the income tax goes up, people blame politicians in the Statehouse. For property taxes, it’s not clear who’s to blame: the state blames local governments. The towns who collect the taxes for school districts and counties blame those entities for not controlling costs. The towns, school districts and counties all blame the state for cutting state aid.
Everyone is to blame. No one is responsible.
The obvious way to control property taxes is to hold the line on expenses, but this is fraught with political consequences, especially for Democrats. Public-sector unions like the NJEA and the two police unions, whose members’ salaries and benefits are largely paid by property taxes, wield enormous influence in both general elections and, particularly, Democratic primaries.
I’m sure it happens more than we know, but a 90 year old widow is being evicted from her home because she couldn’t afford to pay her property taxes.
She took out a reverse mortgage on the home her late husband built in 1953 to pay the property tax. Now she’s out of money and out of the house she raised her family in.
Property taxes are so bad in this state and something’s got to be done. How bad are your property taxes in New Jersey?
We want to stay in Ridgewood but on a significantly reduced income it may not be possible. Yes, our mortgage is long paid, But our taxes have increased astronomically. Our quarterly payment is more than my Social Security for 4 months, so all my Social Security for the year goes entirely to taxes. Thank heavens my husband also has Social Security but it is not enough to cover all other expenses .A reduction in taxes could make the difference between staying here or selling our 4 bedroom Colonial to a family with children. Such a family would cost the Village way more in services than we do now.
At a recent council meeting I asked the council to consider asking our CFO to prepare a report on the feasibility of a property tax reduction, such as 10%, for seniors–whether all seniors or only those with income under a certain level (based on income tax returns) TBD. Other towns do this. It’s fiscally sound for all: a house sold by one or two seniors will go to a family with children, further burdening the school system. With our new all-day kindergarten, and the strong possibility of numerous new apartments looming, we will attract more people with very young children attending school from K through 12. Seniors are around during the day to keep an eye on the neighborhood when others are at work. Seniors volunteer and patronize stores, restaurants, the movie theater, and services such as hair salons on weekdays. A tax reduction each year, especially as taxes rise but a fixed income does not, might help some seniors to remain. Another point that needs to be far more widely known is that seniors with income under a specified amount are entitled to a property tax reduction through the state. The council and website should announce this and provide details, links, forms at Village Hall, etc.
Property tax appeals in New Jersey fell for the fourth straight year in 2016 to their lowest level since 2008, an indication people were less stressed about the value of their homes and, by extension, the condition of the overall economy.
However, the number of appeals, 49,286, remained higher than it had been in any of the dozen years leading up to the financial crisis of 2008.
“Better” doesn’t mean fully recovered.
“It’s a combination of the market value of properties appreciating over the last few years, since the downturn in the market, and also you’ve seen more reassessments or revaluations completed in municipalities, bringing the values back to market,” said Martin Lynch, president of the Association of Municipal Assessors of New Jersey
Updated February 18, 2017
Posted February 18, 2017
By Susan K. Livio | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com
With the Governor and the entire Legislature on the ballot this election year, New Jerseyans will likely hear numerous politicians promise to reduce their especially high property tax bills.
We pay among the highest property taxes in the nation. Last year, the average homeowner paid $8,500 per home, a 2.35 percent increase over 2015, according to the most recent state calculations.
Both the Christie administration and the Legislature agree the annual increases would have been worse had they not passed a 2 percent spending cap on most local expenses.
As unpleasant as it is to admit, there are several facts about the Garden State that make bringing down property taxes very difficult, according to Marc Pfeiffer, assistant director for the Bloustein Local Government Research Center at Rutgers Center. (He previously helped manage six municipalities in central and north Jersey, then more than a quarter-century at the state office overseeing local government spending.)
“New Jersey has had property tax problem for roughly 140 years. We have been talking about this forever,” Pfeiffer said. “If we could have solved it easily, it would have been done.”
In no particular order, here are 7 reasons why they’re so high.
Ridgewood Nj, according to Kiplinger’s exclusive 2016 analysis of state taxes 10 states impose the highest taxes on retirees. Three of them treat Social Security benefits just like Uncle Sam does—taxing as much as 85% of your benefits. Exemptions for other types of retirement income are limited or nonexistent. Property taxes are on the high side, too. And if that weren’t bad enough, some of these states are facing significant financial problems that could force them to raise taxes, cut services, or both.
New Jersey placed 8 on the list Tax-UnFriendly States for Retirees 2016
State Income Tax: 1.4% (on as much as $20,000 of taxable income) – 8.97% (on taxable income greater than $500,000)
Average State and Local Sales Tax: 6.97%
Estate Tax/Inheritance Tax: Yes/Yes
The Garden State’s tax policies create a thicket of thorns for some retirees.
Its property taxes are the highest in the U.S. The median property tax on the state’s median home value of $313,200 is $7,452.
While Social Security benefits, military pensions and some retirement income is excluded from state taxes, your other retirement income could be taxed as high as 8.97%. And New Jersey allows localities to impose their own income tax; the average local levy is 0.5%, according to the Tax Foundation.
Residents 62 or older may exclude as much as $15,000 ($20,000 if married filing jointly) of retirement income, including pensions, annuities and IRA withdrawals, if their gross income is $100,000 or less. Those amounts will gradually rise so that by 2020 joint filers can exclude up to $100,000; single filers, up to $75,000; and married filing separately, up to $50,000.
New Jersey is one of only a couple of states that impose an inheritance and an estate tax. (An estate tax is levied before the estate is distributed; an inheritance tax is paid by the beneficiaries.) In general, close relatives are excluded from the inheritance tax; others face tax rates ranging from 11% to 16% on inheritances of $500 or more. Estates valued at more than $675,000 are subject to estate taxes of up to 16%. Assets that go to a spouse or civil union partner are exempt. The threshold will rise to $2 million on Jan. 1, 2017 and the estate tax will disappear completely in 2018.
To make matters worse George Mason University’s Mercatus Center ranks New Jersey 48th in its analysis of states’ fiscal health.
By Susan K. Livio and Carla Astudillo | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com
on January 25, 2017 at 2:56 PM, updated January 25, 2017 at 7:01 PM
TRENTON — New Jersey’s infamously high property tax bills topped $8,500 per home in 2016, a 2.35 percent increase over the previous year, according to figures released Wednesday by the Department of Community Affairs.
Property owners paid $8,549 — $196 more than they did in 2015 when the average tax bill rose about 2.2 percent, according to the analysis.
The average residential bill has risen from $8,161 in 2014 to $8,353 in 2015 to $8,549 in 2016.
Each year, the average bill set a new high bar for what Garden State property owners
RIDGEWOOD VILLAGE 2016 avg: $17,181 2015 avg: $16,798 Change: 2.30%
By Michael Symons January 24, 2017 7:26 PM
Property taxes increased by more than $700 million across New Jersey in 2016, the most in six years, according to a New Jersey 101.5 compilation of tax data.
That added $196 to the average residential property tax bill, a 2.35 percent jump to $8,549. That’s the same percentage increase as in 2015, which was the most since 2011.
The tax levy increased by 2.54 percent statewide, or nearly $703 million. The levy last rose by that percentage in 2011, and the last time it grew by that many dollars or more was in 2010.
The levy can increase by more than Gov. Chris Christie’s signature 2 percent cap because of exceptions for pensions, health benefits, debt, construction and emergencies. Also, governments that are under the cap one year can “bank” that increase to use in any of the next three years.
Christie spokesman Brian Murray said the governor didn’t want the exemptions. Murray said rising property values largely triggered the slight tax increase and that annual increases in property taxes have averaged 2.04 percent since 2010.
“The annual increase would have been lower had the Legislature not incorporated exceptions to the 2 percent caps, exemptions the governor advocated against,” Murray said. “But more importantly, the rate of increase is far below the astounding 7 percent-per-year tax growth New Jersey averaged during the decade preceding the governor’s arrival in office.”
Democrats Sweeney and Prieto will pursue individual approaches to funding reform
Get ready to hear a lot more about school funding in New Jersey.
This week will start what could amount to nine separate public hearings in the next month about the state of school funding for New Jersey’s public schools, all driven by the somewhat fractured Democratic leadership of the Legislature.
The first is scheduled for today before the Joint Committee for the Public Schools, a hearing that has long been on the docket.
The next day will be the initial hearing before the Assembly’s education committee at 10 a.m. on Wednesday in the State House. Another is planned before a new Senate select committee next week, on January 27, at Kingsway Regional High School in Woolwich at 11 a.m. The next three have yet to be scheduled.
And this is all before Gov. Chris Christie unveils his state budget for fiscal 2017, in which a third of state spending will be aid to schools. It’s anyone’s guess as to what he will put forward.
Christie has been pushing to scuttle the state’s current formula-driven funding plan, instead providing the same amount of state aid per pupil for every district, no matter the need.
Ridgewood NJ, As of Tuesday, New Jersey can no longer claim to have the second-lowest gasoline tax in the country.As the 23-cent-per-gallon increase hit pumps across the state, boosting the 14.5 cents the state charges per gallon to 37.5 cents giving New Jersey the seventh-highest in the U.S.
On top of that the real estate website Zillow looked at median property taxes across the U.S. last year and found that seven of the 10 counties with the highest property taxes ; Bergen, Essex, Passaic, Union, Morris, Hudson and Hunterdon are all in New Jersey. The remaining three were in New York State.
New Jersey has one of the most progressive income tax structures in the entire country. Income taxes start at 1.4 percent on earnings less than $20,000 and the top marginal tax rate hits 8.97 percent on income over $500,000.
Sales tax rate in New Jersey is 7 percent, which ties with Indiana, Mississippi, Rhode Island and Tennessee as the second highest in the USA.
Then there is corporate taxes according to the Tax Foundation, “New Jersey … is hampered by some of the highest property tax burdens in the country, is one of just two states to levy both an inheritance tax and an estate tax, and maintains some of the worst structured individual income taxes in the country,”
In state by state comparisons of state corporation income taxes collected per capita, New Jersey came in seventh highest at $265 per person.
Homeowners at the lower end of North Jersey’s housing market — still suffering disproportionately from the real-estate slump — are now taking another hit in the form of inflated property tax bills that may be costing them hundreds of dollars extra per year.
An analysis by The Record shows that municipal tax offices across the region have been slow to respond to a prevailing trend of the recent tepid recovery — property values in most towns rising more slowly in modest neighborhoods — saddling those homeowners with an increasingly larger share of the property tax burden.
Ridgewood NJ, Josh Gottheimer is covering up allegations about a court case where he was charged with aggressively intimidating and assaulting a woman. He’s repeatedly lied to reporters, saying, “there was no settlement,” when in fact, there was.Now, Garrett for Congress has uncovered new information that Gottheimer failed to pay his property taxes – not once, not twice – but six times.
Intimidation? Tax evasion? What else is Josh Gottheimer hiding? Like his mentor Hillary Clinton, Josh Gottheimer clearly thinks he is above the law.
“Charged with aggressive intimidation and assault at his condo, Josh Gottheimer dismisses his victim’s ordeal as frivolous. But he settled out of court to hide the truth: Gottheimer bought her silence. And what else is he hiding? He failed to pay his property taxes on this same luxury DC condo six times, yet Gottheimer wants you to pay more in taxes. Josh Gottheimer thinks he’s above the law. Josh Gottheimer’s values aren’t New Jersey values.”
Ridgewood Nj, On Tuesday, despite the Governor’s legal trouble, Governor Christie held his latest Fairness Funding Town Hall in New Providence, continuing to make the case for massive property tax relief and equal funding for every student in our state.
The Governor made it clear that its unacceptable to allow the failed, court-ordered school funding format to continue to fail inner-city students and short-change our surburban schools and taxpayers. The largest force opposed the Governor’s Fairness Funding Formula is the NJEA. They have spent millions to buy the support of Trenton Democrats to block any effort to reform school funding, making property taxpayers foot the bill for a failed formula.
The Governor’s plan to provide equal funding to every student across our state would translate into more money and property tax relief for 75% of school districts in the state. In New Providence, the Governor’s plan could translate into a $3,232 reduction in the average homeowner’s yearly property tax bill.
Ridgewood NJ, in the Ridgewood news article , “BOE presentation supports full-day kindergarten” , the Ridgewood News mistakenly implies that the Full-Day Kindergarten will cost taxpayers an additional $111 per year :
“While the program will cost $930,000, according to Best, it will only cost average homeowners $111 per year ($16 per $100,000 assessed value of their house).”.https://www.northjersey.com/news/education/presentation-supports-full-day-kindergarten-1.1669299″
While the the BOE website also states ,”What would be the tax impact on a “yes” vote for the second question on full-day Kindergarten? ○ If full-day Kindergarten is passed by the voters, the average Village assessed home of $693,904 would have taxes increased by approximately $111.” Also a bit unclear .
All indications are that the property tax increase on average Village assessed home of $693,904 is more likely to increase $111 per month ,not $111 per year.
