By Bill Spadea
This post originally appeared at NJ 101.5
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That’s right, the top law enforcement officer in the state, our Attorney General Gurbir Grewal, is talkin’ tough with the Internal Revenue Service ‘threatening’ to sue over the so-called Jersey work-around to the state and local tax deduction cap.
As you know, the Trump tax cuts cap the S.A.L.T. deductions at 10k. With an average real estate tax at nearly 9k plus all the other tax burdens from our state and local government’s, 10k doesn’t cover most New Jerseyans.
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Grewal’s solution? Sue the IRS and try to have the courts enforce a ridiculous solution proposed by some NJ pols and have real estate taxes count as charitable contributions.
What?!?
In order for that to happen, the government would have to show that there is no benefit to the taxpayer for the money they are paying. Although given the waste, fraud and abuse in NJ, you could almost argue that, but we do have roads, schools and cops, so I’d say it’s a stretch.
The real problem is that instead of focusing on the ACTUAL crisis facing most New Jerseyans (out-of-control taxation), the useless pols in Trenton focus on playing games with headline grabbing lawsuits. What if we had an AG focused on law enforcement issues and a Governor focused on lowering the tax burden to bring in more people and businesses to pay taxes and alleviate the burden on the rest of us?
Jon Bramnick who is the Assembly minority leader, joined me on Thursday’s show and shared that the first thing a new majority would do if elected in November, when the entire 80 seat Assembly is up for election, is to cut the income tax.
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Now I know we’re all skeptical of the GOP after the Christie/Oroho/Kyrillos disaster, but we have no choice but to elect new people in order to fix what’s broken and keep more money from fleeing the Garden State.
I’m not suggesting that you vote Republican blindly just for the majority. I know I won’t be doing that. Instead, look at the individual candidate. If they want to spend time attacking Trump’s tax cuts and playing the blame game like Grewal and Murphy, then don’t vote for them. But if you get a GOP candidate committed to tax cuts and following the line presented by Bramnick on my show, give ’em a vote and let’s start on the path to making NJ affordable again.
It’s simple, lower the tax rates across the board and recruit people to relocate back to NJ so we can increase the pool of wealthier tax payers. Only by bringing in more wealth to NJ will we be able to lower the burden on the working and middle class payers. It’s time for solutions beyond partisan talking points and social media vitriol. We can do better, New Jersey.
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Bill Spadea is on the air weekdays from 6 to 10 a.m., talkin’ Jersey, taking your calls at 1-800-283-1015. Tweet him @NJ1015 or @BillSpadea. The opinions expressed here are solely those of Bill Spadea.
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