In a recent guest column, New Jersey Assembly Speaker Craig J. Coughlin said: “It’s time to cut property taxes in half for seniors in New Jersey.” He calls his plan “StayNJ” and says StayNJ “will effectively cut most seniors’ property taxes in half.” (emphasis added)
Okay, so it’s not actually a tax cut; more likely it’s a new or replacement rebate scheme, with no guaranty of funding beyond its first year, by which it will (or will not) have accomplished its principal objective, continued Democratic majorities in the State Legislature. It is not clear who is a senior citizen and what criteria will be used to determine who does and does not qualify. We don’t know because his bill has an impressive number, A1, but as of this writing the text is not available.
While cutting taxes for senior citizens sounds good at first, let’s think about why that class should be favored. Either age is used as a proxy for ability to pay or there is the thought that by age 65 (or whatever the favored age is set at) they have “done their bit,” particularly in paying for schools.
This latter observation reminds me of a comment I made last year:
“Everyone wants to reduce property taxes. Unfortunately, the suggested “solution” is often replacing property taxes with some other tax, essentially taking from a different pocket, hopefully of someone else’s pants.”
Governor Murphy’s budget proposal includes a surplus of $10 billion (derived from COVID aid and increased revenues from COVID-spawned tax increases) and that money is, to use the familiar metaphor, burning holes in the pockets of legislators of both parties. Instead of preserving the money against leaner times (and the State treasurer recently reported tax collections 14% below projections) or using it for necessary capital projects (no, not the New Jersey Hall of Fame, but remember during the pandemic when it was reported that the computers running the unemployment system used a decades-old programming language?), they see the short-term political value in bribing voters.
Jay Bohn
May 25, 2023