Ralph_Abutts wrote:
PILOT revenue afffords the City Council to appropriate as much money as it currently does to the JC public school district. PILOT money does contribute to the schools. The blogger's explanation is not correct despite the pretty visualizations.

brewster wrote:
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T-Bird wrote:
It's really a wealth tax, in a way and not what the notional concept of property tax is about.

No offense, but that "notional concept' is naive, and often used as a cudgel by guys like Monroe. Often you hear "I don't have any kids at all, why do I need to pay for theirs?" You no more "get out what you pay in" in city services than you do in SS. It's one of the many forms of "socialism" in our society that no one thinks of as such, and what makes it work.

Yes, it's a wealth tax, whether paid by landlords or indirectly by tenants. Wealth taxes are a great idea and unfortunately are hard to implement outside of this context, since non RE wealth can be moved out of reach of the taxman pretty easily.

JC_User wrote: Quote:

ProdigalSon wrote: Quote:

bodhipooh wrote: Now, let's look at DTJC abated properties that were recently sold: 305 Grand St Sold: 925 K Tax: $543.00 Effective rate: 0.06% (<- that's not a mistake!) 20 2nd St Sold: 1.15 MM Tax: $647.00 Effective rate: 0.056%

Would either of you care to explain what the L.H. Brownstone Charge of $4060-ish that is semi-annual on the Grand Street Property, or the Pinnacle Tower charge that is on all the 20 2nd Street locations? Unsurprisingly you are trying to obfuscate the facts, no one is paying $700 a year to the government to live in a 1 million dollar home.

And the Zillow real-estate listing from which the numbers were allegedly taken state the "2014 taxes" for 305 Grand St, #303 at $11,789 - these are probably technically Pilot payments. http://www.zillow.com/homedetails/305 ... -NJ-07302/108622747_zpid/ As some posters on this thread really likes percentages and rates: $11,789 is 21,711% of the $543 payment suggested above...

T-Bird wrote:
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brewster wrote:
Bravo bodhipooh, glad to see someone else besides me understands the numbers, and how they represent such a regressive tax. What I can't understand is not only where are the activists, but where are their Councilpersons?

As for the abated properties, is that tax quoted the actual PILOT, or tax paid in addition to the PILOT?

Property taxes are an interesting concept - you could also argue (which I don't support - just making the point) they unfairly tax higher value properties, assuming valuations are up to date and there's a level playing field, which is clearly not the case in Jersey City. Accepted practice is for property taxes to be assessed on the valuation of a home - but is that really fair? If the idea is that each homeowner should contribute to the city's budget, does the couple living in a $1.5 million brownstone on a 2500 sf lot consume more or less services than the family of six with four school aged children living in a house in an other part of town on a bigger lot? Should the fact that the latter house is worth 10% of the former because of unfortunate location drive the tax equation? It's really a wealth tax, in a way and not what the notional concept of property tax is about. Again - this is the system we have and I accept that, but it's something I've always found curious.

T-Bird wrote: Quote:

ProdigalSon wrote: Quote:

bodhipooh wrote: Now, let's look at DTJC abated properties that were recently sold: 305 Grand St Sold: 925 K Tax: $543.00 Effective rate: 0.06% (<- that's not a mistake!) 20 2nd St Sold: 1.15 MM Tax: $647.00 Effective rate: 0.056%

Would either of you care to explain what the L.H. Brownstone Charge of $4060-ish that is semi-annual on the Grand Street Property, or the Pinnacle Tower charge that is on all the 20 2nd Street locations? Unsurprisingly you are trying to obfuscate the facts, no one is paying $700 a year to the government to live in a 1 million dollar home.

It cold be an honest mistake. We have an abatement but there are two components to our "tax"bill - the PILOT for our condo and a property tax bill for our parking space. Those amounts look in the ballpark of a parking space tax bill, based on my experience.

ProdigalSon wrote: Quote:

bodhipooh wrote: Now, let's look at DTJC abated properties that were recently sold: 305 Grand St Sold: 925 K Tax: $543.00 Effective rate: 0.06% (<- that's not a mistake!) 20 2nd St Sold: 1.15 MM Tax: $647.00 Effective rate: 0.056%

Would either of you care to explain what the L.H. Brownstone Charge of $4060-ish that is semi-annual on the Grand Street Property, or the Pinnacle Tower charge that is on all the 20 2nd Street locations? Unsurprisingly you are trying to obfuscate the facts, no one is paying $700 a year to the government to live in a 1 million dollar home.

T-Bird wrote:
It's really a wealth tax, in a way and not what the notional concept of property tax is about.

ProdigalSon wrote: Quote:

bodhipooh wrote: Now, let's look at DTJC abated properties that were recently sold: 305 Grand St Sold: 925 K Tax: $543.00 Effective rate: 0.06% (<- that's not a mistake!) 20 2nd St Sold: 1.15 MM Tax: $647.00 Effective rate: 0.056%

Would either of you care to explain what the L.H. Brownstone Charge of $4060-ish that is semi-annual on the Grand Street Property, or the Pinnacle Tower charge that is on all the 20 2nd Street locations? Unsurprisingly you are trying to obfuscate the facts, no one is paying $700 a year to the government to live in a 1 million dollar home.

brewster wrote:
Bravo bodhipooh, glad to see someone else besides me understands the numbers, and how they represent such a regressive tax. What I can't understand is not only where are the activists, but where are their Councilpersons?

As for the abated properties, is that tax quoted the actual PILOT, or tax paid in addition to the PILOT?

ProdigalSon wrote: Quote:

bodhipooh wrote: Now, let's look at DTJC abated properties that were recently sold: 305 Grand St Sold: 925 K Tax: $543.00 Effective rate: 0.06% (<- that's not a mistake!) 20 2nd St Sold: 1.15 MM Tax: $647.00 Effective rate: 0.056%

Would either of you care to explain what the L.H. Brownstone Charge of $4060-ish that is semi-annual on the Grand Street Property, or the Pinnacle Tower charge that is on all the 20 2nd Street locations? Unsurprisingly you are trying to obfuscate the facts, no one is paying $700 a year to the government to live in a 1 million dollar home.

bodhipooh wrote: Now, let's look at DTJC abated properties that were recently sold: 305 Grand St Sold: 925 K Tax: $543.00 Effective rate: 0.06% (<- that's not a mistake!) 20 2nd St Sold: 1.15 MM Tax: $647.00 Effective rate: 0.056%

jcwalkingman wrote:
Not to drift off topic too much, but does anyone know how an abated tax rate transfers to a new owner during a resale of an abated property? Are "taxes" reassessed when the abated property is transferred? I heard from someone that the abatement rate (generally 1.65% of assessed value) is applied to the property's sale price when the property is transferred to a new owner, but this doesn't seem to make sense since most assessments are below market value.

bodhipooh wrote: It is pretty sad that people will resort to all kinds of obfuscation to try and hide the fact that they are getting a sweet deal by not having to pay their fair share of property taxes. Of course, this has been aided and abetted by all recent mayors. Disappointingly, Fulop did the unthinkable and cancelled the reval (of course, not doing so would have affected residents of his power base, DTJC) but I am glad the state is now looking to force the matter. Of course, you have scoundrels like Ralph Abutts who will actively try to argue against facts and truth, but there is nothing like good, ol' solid data to back up what is a plainly visible fact for anyone who objectively looks at this matter. The data below is pulled from Zillow's list of Recently Sold properties. I randomly picked properties and looked at their selling value (i.e., their market value) and then looked at the most recent tax bills. Almost every DTJC property I found was paying effective tax rates of 1% (or, lower!) while those in areas outside of DTJC were paying effectives ranging from 1.8 to over 4 percent. DTJC (non abated properties) 220 Columbus Sold: 1.05 MM Tax: 11K Effective rate: 1.05% 342 5th St Sold: 714 K Tax: 8.6K Effective rate: 1.2% 317 10th St Sold: 907 K Tax: 10K Effective rate: 1.1% 222 Grand Ave Sold: 1.35 MM Tax: 9K Effective rate: 0.67% (!! talk about criminally low assessment!) 656 Jersey Ave Sold: 1.6 MM Tax: 14.6K Effective rate: 0.91% (another winner!) Now, let's look at DTJC abated properties that were recently sold: 305 Grand St Sold: 925 K Tax: $543.00 Effective rate: 0.06% (<- that's not a mistake!) 20 2nd St Sold: 1.15 MM Tax: $647.00 Effective rate: 0.056% A handful of properties in 07304: 249 Randolph Avenue (bought and flipped after extensive renovations) Sold in April 2015 for 98,4000 Taxes on that value were $4,669 The effective rate: 4.74% 363 Randolph Ave (similarly as the one above, bought and flipped for profit) Sold in December 2012 for 84,000 Taxes on that value were $3,161 Effective tax rate: 3.76% 145 Harrison Ave Sold: $207,500 Taxes: $4,542 Effective tax rate: 2.19% So, tell me again how DTJC is not under assessed and paying their fair property tax levy. And, as a complete aside, but related to the topic: I don't get why so called "community activists" aren't all over this issue. For those who wish to see an improvement to the poor and uneducated, or the areas "ignored by the city", this should be a rallying cry: fair taxation at the local level. If you want to see Greenville, Lafayette, The Heights and other areas improve rapidly, activists should be clamoring and demanding the revaluation, making those areas more affordable, which would in turn drive gentrification. As it stands, you have properties in DTJC worth 2 to 4 times what other properties are worth in those areas, but paying the same or lower amount of taxes. Talk about inequality.

bodhipooh wrote:
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Wishful_Thinking wrote:
I've been following this topic on JCList for 7 years now, and still don't fully understand it.

Hey, Wishful_Thinking, what do you mean or refer to with "the city's general tax rate of 7.434%"??

As for tax rate, it is quite simple to figure out. Normally, in just about every city in the US, your property taxes are determined by multiplying the estimated market value of your property by a given property tax rate. So, for example, if the property tax rate for County Sunshine is 2.2%, and your home is determined to be worth $200,000, your property tax levy would be $4,400. In JC, there is a complicated system of equalization rates and assessed values that obsfucate the matter. In the end, if you want to know if you are over/under paying, you can do some simple math: look at your property tax paid for a given year (say, 2014) and divide that number by the market value of your property. That would tell you the relative property tax rate you are paying. In the case of some/many/most brownstones in DTJC, you will find that they are often paying something close to 1% (i.e., a 1 MM brownstone is paying 10K in taxes) when in reality, they should be paying 21K (this is based on the understanding that the effective property tax rate is about 2.1%). What will happen immediately after a revaluation is that every home (excluding those in other arrangements, such as PILOTs and other tax abatement schemes) will be reset to pay the same effective tax rate. So, a home in Greenville or Lafayette currently 5K, but worth only $200,000, will see a reduction in their tax bill and will now pay 4.1K.

JPhurst wrote:
If the city is getting more money from the PILOTS then they don't make taxes higher for everyone else. Yvonne keeps repeating the mantra "They are not ratables" but that doesn't answer the question. Again, the city gets more, the county gets less, and the schools get none. The state aid makes up most if not all of the revenue from the PILOT for the schools.

There is value to having property as part of the ratable base because a) if there is a tax increase, it is spread out more thinly (although it also means that cuts are spread out more thinly) and b) to the extent these new developments are driving an increase in property values, their value would be reflected in the eventual revaluation. If they are abated they keep their current rate while surrounding properties pay more. To that extent they actually help taxpayers outside of downtown at the expense of the downtown taxpayers.

Yvonne wrote:
Joshua, I realize you are benefiting from an abatement. But stop with the nonsense. After the 1988 reval the city went from $800 million to around $6.5 billion in ratables. The tax rate dropped for $212 per thousand to around $30 per thousand. We are below the $6.5 billion figure because the new development is tax abated. It is not added to the county's formula when the county strikes the budget. It is still one dollar for every $5 million needed to raise taxes. It is the reason our taxes increased to around $75 per thousand. Yes, spending has increased especially under Fulop, just check the city's website on budgets. But our ratable base on paper is less than 1988 which is totally ridiculous.

Ralph_Abutts wrote:
Wishful, just ignore bodi as what he writes is inaccurate. There are not two different tax rates, or percentages as he asserts. The revaluation affects the assessed (equalized)value of the property. The tax rate is a constant value for all.

The fallacy is that he was implying that downtowners pay a lower rate (%) and that Bergen Lafayette was carrying water for them, much like I am carrying water for Warren Buffet who pay s amuch lowerincome tax rate than I.