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Re: Explanation of abatements
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Just can't stay away
 
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My point isn't that Jersey City should have to pay the full $335 million in local fair share, although there are almost 200 towns in New Jersey that do pay 100% of LFS or higher. My point certainly isn't that Jersey City should pay its full Local Fair Share overnight. My point is simply that Jersey City has the economic ability to pay much more than a $114 million school levy and the state needs to devise an orderly way to free up the aid going to Jersey City so that it can be available for districts with much more acute budget problems (who are poor and working class districts like Bayonne, Kearny, and Clifton and NOT affluent suburbs) Yes, charter school transfers are a fiscal problem for the JCPS, although some charter schools in Jersey City have a counternarrative about how _they_ are the ones being treated unfairly due to quirks in how Adjustment Aid is transferred to charters. http://www.njspotlight.com/stories/15 ... e-charter-school-funding/ http://www.njspotlight.com/tables/tge15/#/c03/HUDSON Something I don't think is well understood in Jersey City is that even if SFRA were fully funded Jersey City wouldn't gain any aid for decades. This means that unless SFRA is ignored or rewritten (and I don't know how it would be rewritten in JC's favor), all the new money from the JCPS has to come from local sources. The Total Operating Budget of the JCPS is $565 million. Assuming very conservatively that the JCPS budget should increase by 2%, this means that the JCPS budget should increase by $11 million just to avoid cuts. The JCPS can't keep raising the tax levy by only 2% if it wants to sustain educational quality. 2% of the $114 million tax levy is only $3 million, so this means that 2% tax increases are not sustainable. Jersey City is already $2900 per student Below Adequacy and unlike most other towns that are so far Below Adequacy, the gap is entirely because of undertaxing, not underaiding. The JCBOE, Steve Fulop, and the City Council need to have a strategy for getting an affirmative vote from the Jersey City electorate for a larger tax increase than 2% or else a change in the tax cap law so a district that is significantly below Local Fair Share can go above 2.0% without a vote from the electorate. I'm sure that Jersey City's reassessment will be contentious (even though only a minority will see a tax increase because of reassessment), but at least Jersey City knows what to expect. When it comes to how the school budget, state aid, and tax cap interact and the need to go way above 2% I don't think many in Jersey City know what is going to happen.
Posted on: 2015/11/24 2:26
Edited by stateaidguy on 2015/11/24 2:53:58
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Re: Explanation of abatements
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Home away from home
 
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Thanks for the link, Brewster. On this, and on a few other topics, we seem to be on the same page with the same take/opinion. I really do wonder how something as basic as taxation has become such an ignored topic to the point where people simply shrug their shoulders every year while they are getting the very short and bitter end of things.
Posted on: 2015/11/23 21:22
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Re: Explanation of abatements
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Home away from home
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Here's a page to waste a lot of time on, it has the effective 2014 tax rate of every town in NJ. You can see we're neither highest nor lowest, and you'll find that true if you look at other North Jersey counties like Bergen or Essex. http://www.state.nj.us/treasury/taxation/lpt/taxrate.shtml This is Hudson's, the 2nd number is the effective rate, the 1st is the actual rate on assessed value. DISTRICT General Tax Rate Effective Tax Rate BAYONNE CITY 7.445 3.222 EAST NEWARK BORO 9.114 2.555 GUTTENBERG TOWN 3.540 3.223 HARRISON TOWN 6.877 3.154 HOBOKEN CITY 1.428 1.403 JERSEY CITY CITY 7.434 2.291 KEARNY TOWN 10.036 3.231 NORTH BERGEN TWP 5.240 2.834 SECAUCUS TOWN 3.766 1.996 UNION CITY CITY 6.624 3.295 WEEHAWKEN TWP 4.887 2.186 WEST NEW YORK TOWN 6.692 2.781 2014 General Tax Rates Hudson County
Posted on: 2015/11/23 20:39
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Re: Explanation of abatements
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Home away from home
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It's not my metric. :) It's the metric used by EVERY CITY in the US. Quote:
Actually, those taxes DO sound kind of high. NYC, when compared to most major cities, has SUPER LOW property tax rates because they don't need to raise as much revenue from property owners due to the windfall from Wall Street corporate taxes. I have many friends in BK that pay ridiculously low property taxes, around 0.8% of market value. Your friend seems to be paying over twice that. Property taxes being what they are in NJ is a bit of an equalizer when considering total cost of owning a property in NYC vs one over here. BTW, freezing property tax rates is common in some cities. In Texas, many cities cap taxes for senior citizens after reaching certain age. IIRC, in San Antonio, tax rates are frozen once the homeowner reaches 55 or 60. Quote:
As for your first question: unlikely. Given the commonplace inefficiencies and corruption, additional tax revenue (if any) would be wasted. It should be noted that, in a reval, total tax revenue SHOULD REMAIN THE SAME. Optimal rate: impossible to tell. Too much corruption, too much waste, etc. As for expected rate after a reval: my understanding is that the expected rate will be around 2.1. Some people argue it will be closer to 1.6. I guess it is safe to assume it will be somewhere in between those two rates.
Posted on: 2015/11/23 18:47
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Re: Explanation of abatements
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Home away from home
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So if I use your other metric, market value/annual tax, my actual take rate is 1.1 - 1.2%, which makes my 650 s.f. mini-loft in the Heights taxed too little, and/or under assessed. So I would be one of those who might not benefit from the re-val. We can all complain about taxes (incidentally, I had drinks with an old friend Friday who lives near Union Square. The taxes on his $750K apartment are $12K/year, which could also be seen as low by some - not by my pal, he ranted and raved about his tax situation, and advocated that long-time residents tax rates be frozen!) we all need to pay our fair share. If my taxes double on my small condo, am I out of line asking to be reassured the money will be well used? I have one last question - which may be impossible to answer - what is the optimal effective tax rate for Jersey City?
Posted on: 2015/11/23 17:46
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Re: Explanation of abatements
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Home away from home
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Part of the school funding formula comes from the affluence of the towns, where the money is made had nothing to do with that (as it applies to this discussion of abatements/PILOT). I guess the reality is that school aid from Trenton to JC will at best remain flat, and that JC taxpayers in non-abated residences will shoulder more and more cost every year. With a reval on the rise the school funding from the state could drop even more.
Posted on: 2015/11/23 3:57
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Home away from home
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We can put aside interstate taxation issues for the moment. As long as it is within the state, Trenton can tax it. You can say the suburbs are "subsidizing" urban areas if you consider the suburb a castle where you take your loot home at the end of the day and it magically becomes wealth of "the suburb." In fact, it is the urban areas, and particularly Jersey City, that have grown and allowed income to be earned and sales to be made.
A landlord who owns buildings in Jersey City but lives in a suburb gets his or her money from tenants in Jersey City. So are the office workers who commute into the city. Without the cities, those suburbanites can't go home at the end of the day and play with their money. So there is no reason to say that the income tax in question should be earmarked for the suburb.
Posted on: 2015/11/23 3:12
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Home away from home
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I don't think that Trenton cares where the income tax money is generated. And wealthy taxpayers spend more, so sales tax receipts are surely higher from wealthy taxpayers.
Posted on: 2015/11/23 1:29
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Home away from home
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And where and how do they earn their money?
Posted on: 2015/11/23 1:12
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Home away from home
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Wouldn't residents in a town ranked 6th out of over 700 towns in per capita income pay much higher NJ income tax than average? According to Forbes, 3 of NJ's 5 billionaires are residents.
Posted on: 2015/11/23 0:15
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Home away from home
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No, because where people reside is not where they generate revenue.
Posted on: 2015/11/23 0:09
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Re: Explanation of abatements
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Home away from home
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State aid guy....there is also a formula for charter school funding, too, that incidentally the State does not adhere to. Additionally, for the State to write that PILOTS do not contribute to funding schools is really misleading. It is all political spin.
You cannot be serious to write that Jc municipality CAN pay an additional $335 million to the schools. That is basically doubling the budget and local taxes would double overnight. Aside from the inability and unwillingness to pay there are State imposed tax, debt, and appropriation caps ranging from 2 - 3.5% on the municipality.....knows the price of everything, but not the cost.
Posted on: 2015/11/22 20:01
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Newbie
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Monroe does have a rich daddy though.
Posted on: 2015/11/22 16:56
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Home away from home
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Wrong on every count, lol. But it's fun having a personal stalker-are you the same person who insisted I was a JC cop?
Posted on: 2015/11/22 16:27
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Re: Explanation of abatements
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Newbie
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Again, Monroe pays no property tax in NJ.
Rent is not tax, neither is alimony to your ex-wife to pay the taxes on the house you used to own.
Posted on: 2015/11/22 16:21
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Home away from home
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6th highest per capita income of the 702 townships in NJ, so I'd say far above average? :)
Posted on: 2015/11/22 15:44
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Home away from home
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Yes, and how much of Trenton's revenue is generated in your town?
Posted on: 2015/11/22 15:36
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Re: Explanation of abatements
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Home away from home
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Nonsense. We pay 86% of our school costs (and get 11% from Trenton) because towns like JC pay 16% and get 76% from Trenton. And spending 25% more per student than the state average gets you a graduation rate-wait for it-20 percentage points lower than the state average.
Posted on: 2015/11/22 15:34
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Home away from home
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No, your property taxes go to your schools. We don't get a dime of them. State aid comes from state revenue. How much in income tax revenue and sales tax revenue (including UEZ revenue which Christie transferred from municipalities to the state to cover the budget shortfall) is generated by Jersey City as opposed to whatever bumblefuck suburb you live in.
Posted on: 2015/11/22 15:23
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Home away from home
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Don't worry, the fact that the town I do pay taxes in (with a population of 20,000) pays 75 million on its school system from local taxes, vs Jersey City, whose taxpayers spend 107 million-with 230,000 residents. So, like so many other suburban taxpayers, I'm subsidizing your school system with its 66% graduation rate! Enjoy it while you can!
Posted on: 2015/11/22 13:33
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Re: Explanation of abatements
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Newbie
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The taxes on the unit Monroe rents in an abated building are $245 annually.
Thanks for your contribution to this city.
Posted on: 2015/11/22 12:43
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Re: Explanation of abatements
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Just can't stay away
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I don't know if you mean the "city government is in no position to make a significant increase in its contribution to the school district" or "Jersey City taxpayers are no position to make a significant increase in its contribution to the school district," but if you mean the latter you are not correct. NJ has a formula to determine how much tax money a district can pay towards it schools. It is called "Local Fair Share" and consists of 50% Equalized Valuation and 50% Total Income. Jersey City's LFS is $335 million and will go up even more next year due to the increases in Equalized Valuation and income. Jersey City's actual tax levy is only $114 million. This means that Jersey City pays only a third of its LFS. The average district in NJ pays 80% of its LFS. Even Newark pays 62% of its LFS. Jersey City can thus contribute A LOT more to its schools. What the JCBOE doesn't realize is that it is going to have to do this. SFRA (NJ's school aid law) is badly underfunded, but even if it were fully funded Jersey City would not gain any aid because it is already dramatically overaided. This means that the best case aid scenario for JC is flat aid, although aid cuts are more likely. This means that the JCBOE will have to ask the JC electorate at some time in the near future to go above the 2% cap. Jersey City's PILOTs are a problem, but the JC BOE refuses to raise taxes as much as the cap allows anyway even though JC has a large annual increase in Equalized Valuation anyway. The tax cap law has adjustments for health insurance, pop growth, and a few other things giving BOEs the ability to raise taxes by more than 2.0%. The JCBOE has not done this. In fact a few years ago the tax increase was less than 2.0%.
Posted on: 2015/11/22 2:59
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Just can't stay away
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I see more sensitivity here about Jersey City's state aid than I've heard before from you, but you are not correct that "the loudest complainers about the school funding formula are suburbs." Maybe you realize that I am from the suburbs and I condemn NJ's aid distribution, but the loudest complaints are from savagely underaided poor non-Abbots. This is about a forceful protest from Prospect Park about how ripped off they are by the state. (Prospect Park has an aid deficit over $8000 per student.) http://www.northjersey.com/news/prosp ... school-tax-hike-1.1309809 This is about Teresa Ruiz, Steve Sweeney visiting Freehold Boro to talk about Pre-K and instead meeting furious complaints about how ripped off Freehold Boro is. (Freehold Bori is also underaided by over $8000 a student.) http://www.nj.com/monmouth/index.ssf/ ... chool_overcrowding_u.html This is about Clifton's anger at being underaided by over $4000 a student when hundreds of districts are in fact overaided. http://www.northjersey.com/news/educa ... unding-question-1.1423553 I could go on of anger from very poor towns. The battle over state aid, which has yet to really begin, is between overaided districts against underaided districts. Jersey City is overaided by $111 million, but not all Abbotts are overaided at all and you don't see me criticizing their aid, do you? This is not suburb vs city, it is (partly) Gentrified Abbott vs still poor non-Abbott. njeducationaid.blogspot.com
Posted on: 2015/11/22 2:50
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Re: Explanation of abatements
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Home away from home
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Call it what you want perception is half the game of interpretation. The cut isn't even, owners get more.
Posted on: 2015/11/21 23:19
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Get on your bikes and ride !
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Re: Explanation of abatements
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Home away from home
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Sorry, the NJ Treasury Department begs to differ: "Homeowners and tenants who pay property taxes, either directly or through rent, on their principal residence in New Jersey may qualify for either a deduction or a refundable credit on their New Jersey resident income tax return." http://www.state.nj.us/treasury/taxation/njit35.shtml
Posted on: 2015/11/21 23:04
Edited by JCMan8 on 2015/11/21 23:21:06
Edited by JCMan8 on 2015/11/21 23:21:36 |
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Re: Explanation of abatements
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Home away from home
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A lot of responses reflect the votes and lack of outcry from elected officials such as council persons which are voted in by the residents. Is it fair that renters are allowed to vote in municipal elections without having to contribute to the city's ratables ? After all these "visitors" create a turn around population but still suck up city services.
Posted on: 2015/11/21 22:54
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Get on your bikes and ride !
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Re: Explanation of abatements
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Home away from home
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I guess you've never owned a rental property. Every tenant I've ever had paid 100% of my real estate taxes. I guess you could say even I didn't pay it, my CPA wrote the check from the LLC.
Posted on: 2015/11/21 21:22
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Just can't stay away
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Paying rent is not paying taxes.
Posted on: 2015/11/21 19:09
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Re: Explanation of abatements
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Home away from home
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This is Jersey City school funding source
Revenue Sources, State: 76.2% Revenue Sources, Local Taxes: 16.2% Revenue Sources, Federal: 7.6%
Posted on: 2015/11/21 16:45
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Re: Explanation of abatements
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Home away from home
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Nonsense. When the state is paying 3/4 of the school costs you can't say it's part of the JC budget. And yes, I pay rent in JC (which is paying taxes, of course) and own in the suburbs. It's no surprise to my personal friends on JCList, but I find your fascination with my finances amusing!
Posted on: 2015/11/21 16:41
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