By Matt Rooney | The Save Jersey Blog
At the end of another annual League of Municipalities bash punctuated by stake, booze, but no progress for the taxpayers, Save Jerseyans, it’s appropriate to reflect on this week’s most infuriating Garden State story. And this one is a real doozy.
First reported by NJ.com, the Division of Taxation is forcing three blue county towns – Jersey City (Hudson), Elizabeth (Union) and Dunellen (Middlesex) – to conduct property reassessments after tax boards failed to reassess for three decades.
Elizabeth is the worst offender; an assessment hasn’t taken place there in 39 years. Consequently, homes in Elizabeth there are presently assessed at only 13% of the true market value.
What you need to know is that this mess is only the tip of proverbial iceberg, Save Jerseyans. Whether we’re talking about New Jersey’s absurd school funding formula or the urban property tax PILOT scam, anyone who’s honest is forced to admit that our state’s fiscal woes are 100% the result of misallocated or straight-up wasted resources, not insufficient “revenues.”
Democrats routinely feign concern over everyone paying their “fair share” of taxes. The exception, it seems, continues to be Democrats, living in Democrat-controlled cities, who are blissfully living off of the rest of the state.
The truth? All the money we need to fix the roads, fund pensions, and keep taxpayers from fleeing to cheaper states is already in the pipeline! We lack only the political will to make the right choices. For example, it’s high time to stop subsidizing the gubernatorial aspirations of Jersey City Mayor Steven Fulop at the expense of the other 564 municipalities.
Time to quit cutting the steak and start working on severing the cord…
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Christie had 6 years to deal with it – and one wonders why his support in NJ is at 7%?
Would cut a pay-to-play scheme of lawyers on both sides appealing/defending re-evals!
Wow. Does this mean that Dunellen, Jersey City an Elizabeth property taxes are lower than in, say, Metuchen or Holmdel for similar properties? Why wasn’t something said or done? Aren’t there town ordinances covering this?
Trenton city also. Just reevaluated after 30 something years. We have the highest rates in the state already so I have no idea what people will do with the resultant tax increases some of which could be several thousand annually. This is how you finish off what little is left of a dying city…
Truth be told, it is how you finish off a dying state.
Hey Matt…what happened to my brilliant riposte? Afraid to publish it?
Socialist Dem policies making us worse and worse by the year! Almost to Greece level and yet idiots keep voting for this shit.