In his State of the State address, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie exaggerated some figures and boasted about progress that doesn’t look so impressive when compared with national trends. Christie said that state property taxes “increased more than 70 percent” in the 10 years prior to him becoming governor, and that they’ve increased by “less than 2 percent” in each of the last four. That ignores the impact state rebates have played in lowering the property tax burden before he was governor, and the impact of the rebate cuts he implemented as governor. However, Christie’s claim doesn’t factor in rebates that some received over that time that ultimately lowered their property tax burden. When factoring in the average tax rebate homeowners and tenants received — $111 in 1999 and $1,037 in 2009 — property taxes increased by closer to 51 percent over that time period. Christie also said that since he’s been in office, “we have had four years of less than 2 percent annual property tax growth.” That’s not exactly right. Property taxes increased 1.6 percent in 2012 and 1.3 percent in 2013, after Christie signed a bill capping annual property tax increases at no more than 2 percent. But there was a 2.4 percent increase in 2011. Figures for 2014 have not yet been released. Christie’s claim of 2 percent annual growth also ignores large cuts in the property tax rebate program that he has made to help balance the state budget while in office. According to an analysis of previously available state data by the news website NJ Spotlight, average net property taxes (including rebate deductions) increased by 18.6 percent, or 6.2 percent annually, between 2009 and 2012, when taxes, on net, went from $6,244 to $7,405.
Posted on: Tue, 27 Jan 2015 13:27:56 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015