Recent Property Tax Statement

Just got my 2016 property tax statement and I would like to thank the town committee and the tax assessor for helping me break the $15,000 threshold.  When I moved here in 1983 my taxes were $2800

per year.  To show what an anchor Newark is to the suburbs, the house I grew up in down the shore is assessed at $ 2.7 million and the taxes are $18,000. My house is assessed at $410,000. Oh, and thank you Governor Christie as my taxes have gone up the fastest in the seven years you have been in office than they have in the previous 26 years.  Well done.  

moved here in 2012 taxes were $15k. Now they are almost $19k. 

We are already planning our escape. The annual duck race isn't worth it.

I believe that largest portion of our property taxes goes to the school system.  The second largest chunk goes to running the town (police, fire, DPW, town hall, etc), and then a portion goes to county.  Covering Newark via county taxes is by no means the reason our taxes are so high.

Paying for school systems via property taxes is insane and really needs to change.

Yeah but where to escape to and still have a decent commute and a walkable town?  thoughts?

It is also about lack of rateables. House in Millburn, assessed for $460. Tax just went up to $10,024.  Thank you, Short Hills Mall.

And all the rich people in town. You benefit from the fact that you are at the bottom on the Millburn property value, while a similarly assessed home in Maplewood or South Orange would be in the middle. Of course that house would likely be bigger.

Formerlyjerseyjack said:

It is also about lack of rateables. House in Millburn, assessed for $460. Tax just went up to $10,024.  Thank you, Short Hills Mall.

Looking at the records the taxes on the house were $5,800 back in 2006. That is a huge increase for a ten year span. 

Formerlyjerseyjack said:

It is also about lack of rateables. House in Millburn, assessed for $460. Tax just went up to $10,024.  Thank you, Short Hills Mall.

Please describe the house in Millburn that is worth $460k and then describe a house in SOMA that is worth $460k.  I think that there would be a substantial difference.

Stags1978 said:

Just got my 2016 property tax statement and I would like to thank the town committee and the tax assessor for helping me break the $15,000 threshold.  When I moved here in 1983 my taxes were $2800

per year.  To show what an anchor Newark is to the suburbs, the house I grew up in down the shore is assessed at $ 2.7 million and the taxes are $18,000. My house is assessed at $410,000. Oh, and thank you Governor Christie as my taxes have gone up the fastest in the seven years you have been in office than they have in the previous 26 years.  Well done.  

Be nice if they at least gave us a prize at such milestones, like free tickets to Les Miz.  

Robert_Casotto said:

Be nice if they at least gave us a prize at such milestones, like free tickets to Les Miz.  

For the taxes I pay it dam well better be Hamilton!

New cast or original cast?

Robert_Casotto said:

New cast or original cast?

Either ... I mean I'm not greedy or anything

Move to Florida already.

Stags1978 said:

Just got my 2016 property tax statement and I would like to thank the town committee and the tax assessor for helping me break the $15,000 threshold.  When I moved here in 1983 my taxes were $2800

per year.  To show what an anchor Newark is to the suburbs, the house I grew up in down the shore is assessed at $ 2.7 million and the taxes are $18,000. My house is assessed at $410,000. Oh, and thank you Governor Christie as my taxes have gone up the fastest in the seven years you have been in office than they have in the previous 26 years.  Well done.  

What are your preferred solutions?  

Property taxes have actually gone up less statewide under Christie than under his predecessors.  From 2000 to 2010, taxes increased by 35% even after inflation.

Since Christie came into office, taxes are up 10% in constant dollars, but inflation has been 9%, so there is only a 1% real dollars increase.

Since 2010, in 42% of NJ's municipalities tax increases have lagged inflation. 

Partly the restraint is from the crappy economy, but I think the tax cap is a factor too.  

Anyway, if you don't like Christie, just wait until Phil Murphy becomes governor. He's against any kind of tax cap. 

http://www.nj.com/politics/index.ssf/2016/02/are_nj_property_taxes_actually_decreasing_in_some.html

If you don't like Christie, just wait until Phil Murphy becomes governor (I consider him the leading candidate). He's against any kind of tax cap.  

Earlier versions of Phil Murphy's campaign websites said not a word about property taxes.  He now has a little bit about property taxes on his website, but speaks of them only being a problem for the very poor and the elderly.  He doesn't purport to care about property taxes for middle-income people or the non-elderly.  

Murphy's only solution to our property taxes is to increase rebates for seniors.  He says nothing about the underlying reasons for the increases.  He never addresses how much increasing rebates would cost or how NJ can afford it when Murphy's #1 commitment seems to be pensions.  

Fulop and Sweeney seem to care much more about property taxes than Murphy does, but things are going to become much, much, much worse whichever party has the governorship in the 2020s when the pension funds zero-out.  

Great, the rate on increase on our taxes has slowed, but our infrastructure is in shambles and our pension obligations have worsened.  Our debt ratings have plummeted, but all is good because taxes are not increasing at as fast of a rate.  Seriously, it's this type of thinking @Runner_Guy @JBennett that got us into this position in the first place.  Why pay for something now when we can saddle future generations with the costs?  Remind me to never vote for you for anything.

Steve said:

Great, the rate on increase on our taxes has slowed, but our infrastructure is in shambles and our pension obligations have worsened.  Our debt ratings have plummeted, but all is good because taxes are not increasing at as fast of a rate.  

I agree with you about infrastructure. I support raising the gax tax. 

Christie is a bad governor, but even a bad governor can be right about some things and not every crisis that NJ has is Christie's fault.

We have argued about this before, but the origins of the pension crisis are very complicated.  Pension costs have increased faster than the general budget since at least the 1980s, underfunding began in the 1990s, and underfunding got really bad in the early 2000s.  

And as bad as our governors, legislature, and Supreme Court have been, it's also no one's fault since NJ's economy has been relatively stagnant since 2000.  Had NJ's economy grown in the 21st century the way it grew 1950-2000, NJ's revenues would be billions higher and we would not be in crisis. 

The glib "fully fund the pensions" call is equivalent to "put New Jersey in a debtors prison."

NJ will need to increase taxes, but I can't see NJ fully funding the pensions without making cuts too and a large portion of those cuts will be to the school aid and municipal aid packages that are about 45% of the budget.  When you cut municipal and school aid you pressure towns and BOEs to increase their property taxes.  

So fully fund the pensions and restraining property taxes are opposite impulses. When you put more money into one you have to take money from the other.  

----

I've seen so much historically unaware criticism of Christie over the last few years, but like I said, NJ's economic secular stagnation started before Christie became gov.

Read this about NJ's declining economic base from 2006.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/15/nyregion/nyregionspecial2/hightech-lowered-profile.html?_r=0&mtrref=www.facebook.com&gwh=A78F99986001544025F5F3B4C441A769&gwt=pay

Again, this is nothing more than a steaming pile of crap you're throwing.  This "fully fund the pensions" line you repeatedly spew is bull*****.  Again, you're making perfect the enemy of the good.  Christie has refused to fund the pensions in any meaningful manner, even going so far as to fail to even abide by his own pension reform laws.  He's making the problem worse.  That's the result of his policies and actions.  Don't give me this nonsense any more.  

Most of the money (almost 60%) goes to the schools. No matter where you live or how expensive the homes are, you still have to pay for schools.  Newark is not the main problem.

Our tax increases over the past 5 years or so have been the smallest percentage wise in a loooong time.  The problem is once you reach 5 figures, even a small percentage increase is a lot of actual dollars.

yahooyahoo said:



Our tax increases over the past 5 years or so have been the smallest percentage wise in a loooong time.  The problem is once you reach 5 figures, even a small percentage increase is a lot of actual dollars.

I've been saying that for years.

From what I've seen so far, Fulop is a moron.

If he becomes Governor of NJ, we are all in big trouble.  He won't even address the property tax issues in Jersey City.  The State of NJ had to order Fulop and the city to proceed with a long overdue revaluation.  He's in the back pocket of wealthy developers.

Runner_Guy said:

If you don't like Christie, just wait until Phil Murphy becomes governor (I consider him the leading candidate). He's against any kind of tax cap.  

Earlier versions of Phil Murphy's campaign websites said not a word about property taxes.  He now has a little bit about property taxes on his website, but speaks of them only being a problem for the very poor and the elderly.  He doesn't purport to care about property taxes for middle-income people or the non-elderly.  

Murphy's only solution to our property taxes is to increase rebates for seniors.  He says nothing about the underlying reasons for the increases.  He never addresses how much increasing rebates would cost or how NJ can afford it when Murphy's #1 commitment seems to be pensions.  

Fulop and Sweeney seem to care much more about property taxes than Murphy does, but things are going to become much, much, much worse whichever party has the governorship in the 2020s when the pension funds zero-out.  

Steve said:

Again, this is nothing more than a steaming pile of crap you're throwing.  This "fully fund the pensions" line you repeatedly spew is bull*****.  Again, you're making perfect the enemy of the good.  Christie has refused to fund the pensions in any meaningful manner, even going so far as to fail to even abide by his own pension reform laws.  He's making the problem worse.  That's the result of his policies and actions.  Don't give me this nonsense any more.  

Agreed

jimmurphy said:

Steve said:

Again, this is nothing more than a steaming pile of crap you're throwing.  This "fully fund the pensions" line you repeatedly spew is bull*****.  Again, you're making perfect the enemy of the good.  Christie has refused to fund the pensions in any meaningful manner, even going so far as to fail to even abide by his own pension reform laws.  He's making the problem worse.  That's the result of his policies and actions.  Don't give me this nonsense any more.  

Agreed

The more money you put into pensions, the less you have for other purposes.  Since state aid (municipal and school) is a very large portion of the budget, it's difficult to avoid cutting it.  When you cut state aid, you force localities to increase taxes.

NJ can raise taxes to make budgeting less zero-sum, but I don't think we can price ourselves out of competition with neighboring states and the rest of the country.   Some places with very wide moats and strategic locations can do this, but I don't think that applies to us.

Politicians who say they are going to pay for their initiatives with new revenue are making a promise based on something they have little control over.  

Why is this bulls**t?

This conversation was originally about property taxes.  I pointed out to a study showing smaller increases in the last few years.  The study was from the Star-Ledger, not a right wing think tank.  I gave credit to the tax cap and the bad economy, not Christie's state aid policies.  

I brought up pensions as a way of predicting that things will become worse in a few years when the next governor tries to fulfill NJ's legal obligations.  

It's bull***** because you can't say tax increases have slowed in a vacuum.  Are we getting the same services for our property tax dollars or have they been diminished?  Are funds being redirected from other sources to make up for the slower increase in taxes?  That's why it's bull*****.  You know that we've cut programming and services but don't acknowledge that.  You know that money has been redirected from other sources but don't acknowledge that.