I can't get enough of Christie I just hope he does get caught up in some scandal because he is really keeping his campaign promises. I personally have seen how property taxes can increase at alarming rates. When we first bought our house in Essex County the taxes were $7,300, pricey by most standards around the country but reasonable for New Jersey. By the time we sold the house 3 years later we were paying $9,500, that's a 25% increase in just three years. We ended up selling the house because we couldn't afford another tax increase. Under Christie's proposed cap we would have saved $1600 per year. Keep it up Chris the voters in New Jersey are behind you and the nation is watching so please don't disgrace us.
By John Reitmeyer
The Record
Tuesday May 18, 2010
Property tax bills in New Jersey would be lower — $1,600 on average — if Governor Christie's proposed 2.5 percent cap on tax increases had been in place 10 years ago, according to a Record analysis of state Department of Community Affairs tax data.
Those projected savings for taxpayers would have offset the loss of the $1,000 property tax rebate checks Christie plans to cut this year to help balance the state budget during a recession.
And the billions the state has spent on property tax rebate checks this decade would have been freed up for other needs if the cap had been in place. Money could have gone to schools and municipalities…
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The 2.5 percent cap on tax levy increases is part of a larger reform agenda the governor put forward last week, calling his 33 proposed bills a "tool kit" for lower property taxes. Christie is pushing the Legislature to pass the reforms before it breaks for the summer at the end of June — something that would put the tax levy cap on the ballot this November.
"People of New Jersey need to decide," Christie said last week during a State House news conference. "Do they want to know for sure that their property taxes will increase no more than 2.5 percent a year or do they want to continue to engage in the game of Trenton roulette, where the amount of increase depends on which slot the ball falls in, which special interest is going to be catered to, which tax is going to be increased that year?
"I don't think the people of this state want roulette anymore," he said. "I think they want a degree of certainty to what's going to happen with their expenses, especially in these extraordinarily difficult times."
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Still, if the 2.5 percent cap on annual tax increases had been in place since 2000, the more than 60 percent increase in average property tax bills over the last decade would have been cut in half, according to the Record analysis of tax data for the past decade.
Property tax bills that averaged $7,281 statewide in 2009 would have risen last year to just $5,668, at most, according to the analysis.
A cap on tax hikes such as the one proposed by Christie is not a novel idea: Indiana is in the process of enacting one and Massachusetts and California already have similar caps.
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Under the cap Christie envisions, the only exception would be made for debt payments. And the only way a school board, town or county government could get around the cap would be through public approval at the ballot box.
"Having a 2.5 percent cap, what that does is, it gives the ultimate trump card to the voters," Christie said during the news conference. "I think the people of New Jersey know and understand that they no longer want to leave their property taxes in the sole discretion of the politicians."
Sen. Joseph Kyrillos, R-Monmouth, took the first step toward getting the cap in place by introducing legislation on Thursday that would authorize a referendum on the cap in November.
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But state Sen. Steve Oroho, R-Sussex, said the cap is needed to protect property owners who are not seeing their incomes increase every year as much as their tax bills.
"We have a segment of our population that already do live on caps, our senior citizens," Oroho said.
And others argue the cap wouldn't necessarily result in service reductions if governments work together by sharing services and working on other consolidation efforts.
A Quinnipiac University poll conducted late last year found that 73 percent of those surveyed favored merging school districts and municipal governments as a way to reduce property tax bills.
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"Everybody is tired of seeing taxes go up and up and up, and seeing the answer from the status quo Trenton insiders to be 'raise a tax for one year,' " the governor said.
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Link To Article:
http://www.northjersey.com/news/94043604_What_if_tax_cap_had_been_around_for_10_years_.html?page=all
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