Property tax easement up in Assembly Monday, June 11, 2007
TRENTON (AP) -- Despite opposition from Gov. Jon Corzine, the Assembly is slated today to consider a plan that would ask voters if all the money earned from last year's sales tax increase should be devoted to property tax relief.
Under the proposal, voters would decide in November whether to amend the state constitution to permanently dedicate the sales tax revenue for that purpose. As a proposed amendment, the bill would have to be approved by 48 of the 80 Assembly members, but Democrats who are pushing the proposal control the Assembly 50-30.
The Senate has not considered the bill, but is expected to do so in the coming weeks.
If placed on the ballot and approved by voters, the plan would make $1.4 billion in sales tax money annually available to help ease property taxes that average $6,330 per homeowner, the highest amount in the nation.
Most notably, the money would help pay for the Democratic plan to give most homeowners a 20 percent property tax cut later this year through rebates checks that will average $1,051.
"New Jersey residents who pay the nation's highest property-tax bills deserve permanent property-tax cuts," said Assembly Speaker Joseph Roberts Jr., D-Camden.
Good grief; months ago everyone said it'd be a farce.
We wind up paying from one hand and getting back in the other. And undoubtedly, we'll get less back than the extra we pay now.
There will never be anything meaningful that's done to help the property tax situation...I wonder how many additional employees the state needs to handle this particular project.
Not sure what to make of this idea. It seems strange for the dems to be taxing apartment dwellers via the sales tax to benefit comparatively more well off property owners. I guess the payoff is the pols get to write some big checks and say see what I did for you. Off course additional state jobs will absolutely be needed to accomplish this income redistribution. Very productive work by our elected officials!!!
I wish that I could simply say, "Amen" and be done with it, but it is much easier said than done. The equity that you may think that you have in your home probably does not exist to the extent that you imagine, and that is a huge problem for most of us.
