Response to Assm Panter

Save Our Homes and Our Future
Here is a reply I just made to Assm Panter on his blog. He was expressing hope that the Property Tax issue will be addressed in a meaningful way.

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I am sorry to report that there is little or no hope for genuine property tax reform until the actual problem is acknowledged and addressed. It is that the Property Tax is fundamentally unfair. As it does not take into account one's ability to pay, it automatically (without any special interest tax law snuck in to benefit the well connected) causes those at the bottom to pay a tax relative to income that is obsene.

Here is an example from a woman I have recently spoken to who called me in regard to my letters to the editor.

This is not made up. There is a 79 year old widow who lives in Middletown Twp. She has annual income of $21,000. Her Property Tax bill is $5500. That means she is paying over 25% of her meager income in property taxes.

The top Income Tax rate in NJ for those making $500,000 is only 9%. So one must ask, is this a fair system? Do you think you could live on what this widow has left after paying her taxes? Should she be forced to move from her home of 51 years simply because we have an unjust and oppressive tax system?

How many people making $500,000 also have a $125,000 property tax bill? And even if they did, they certainly might manage to scrape by on the remaining $375,000.

We need to change the system. Until politicians and tax reform groups stop focussing on spending as the problem, there will never be genuine property tax reform.

The writer who lives in Marlboro would probably like to have the peace of mind that comes with know that if they experienced a precipitous drop in their income, they would not be forced from their home because they could no longer afford their property taxes.

Do not mistake what I say. Yes, spending should be addressed. But that should happen regardless of how we collect taxes to fund government services.

One must also acknowledge the reality that there can never be enough "savings" found on the spending side to help people such as the widow mentioned above. Does anyone really believe that cutting her property taxes in half ever happen? And even if it did, can anyone say with a straight face that she should be paying any taxes?

Let's get to the real issue here. The Property Tax is an outdated, oppressive and unjust tax. We must pay for government services a different way than that.