When will they ever get it?

The front page of the Asbury Park Press, again, has an article on the devastation the property tax inflicts on fixed, low and middle income home owners. And, once again, everyone they interview misses the point: The property tax ought to be eliminated. It is not a fairly assessed tax which is merely too high. It is an inherently unfair, inequitable tax.

What seems to confuse everyone is there is a separate issue at play. That is, spending is too high. The focus on controlling spending is legitimate. But lowering spending can never make the property tax fair. The less income one has,the more it places a disproportionate share of funding upon one's shoulders.

That is why the picture insert caption has the homeowner complaining that one third of his take-home pay goes to paying property taxes. I wonder what six figure income home owner would need to say that? Especially if you look at those making mid and upper six figures. How many of them are paying $200,000 and $300,000 in property taxes?

Property taxes in NJ are too high! So say the Press, the governor, legislators, columnists and just about everyone. In response they think that if we just cut enough bloat, property taxes will go down and everyone will then be happy. This is misguided thinking, at best. At worst, it is intentional misdirection. Does anyone really believe there can ever be reductions of meaningful amounts such as 30% or 40% so that despite the inequity they are more of a nuisance tax than a burden?

The reason property taxes are the most hated is because they exact taxes without regard for ability to pay. This is why replacing them—not supplementing— with a local income tax is the answer. No longer will one be imputed with ability to pay just because there are wealthy people living in the same town.

If there were a local income tax, you would kill two birds with one stone:
First, taxes would not be unfairly assessed on those unable to afford them.
Second, you would see immediate fiscal responsibility in budgets for the schools, town and county. Why? Because people will not stand for automatic annual increases in an income tax. If that were possible, Trenton would be doing it every year. They don’t.

The property tax is from a time when one’s property directed correlated with their ability to generate income. That is no longer the case. So, it is time for the Press and all the rest to get on board with this plan to really address the bane of the property tax once and for all.

Do not let the lack of updates make you think this site is out of date. I have noticed that there are more and more calls in letters to the editor to eliminate the property tax. So my message might be finally taking hold or (more likely) others just see its inherent inequities and draw the same conclusion.

One of the biggest problems in getting this message into the heads of the average taxpayer is they assume the property tax's legitimacy or--worse--they see the need to eliminate it but figure it cannot be done and so conclude there is no point in trying.

How discouraging. Ideas are what have changed the course of history. They begin as an idea and then capture the imagination and heart of more and more people until they are integrated into the way they act and what they do.

It is no different here. To eliminate the property tax can easily be done if people would just change their mind that "it can't be done". There is nothing else stopping this from happening. There are no guns pointed at our heads. There is no "disappearing" of those advocating its end. There are no gulags people are exiled to. It is only their own defeatist attitude and thoughts that prevents this.

What about those who think it is a fair and equitable way to collect revenue to fund government? They are either willfully blind or simply do not care about fairness and equity in the taxing system.

It is not complicated. If fairness and equity are guiding principles, no amount of other pragmatic, dogmatic nor idiotic (ignoring the obvious) argumentation should be allowed to trump an ethical matter. And that is what this is. Are we a people who are guided by transcendent principles or not?