The high cost of revaluations to property owners every five to 10 years can run in the hundreds of thousands of dollars to more than $1 million. But it would cost the county about $400,000 a year.
When assessments are too far from 100 percent of true value, some people pay more than they should pay, and others pay less.
It would take state legislation to allow the county to set up its own assessment program, and that is what Levinson wants. Under that plan, local assessors would lose their jobs but some would be hired by the county.
Levinson believes a county assessment office would be more objective and not tempted to raise assessments to increase municipal collections. He also believes a county office could properly assess Atlantic City casinos.
Entire article at http://www.pressofatlanticcity.com/communities/absecon_galloway_port-republic/atlantic-county-officials-push-for-puzzled-by-countywide-assessment-plan/article_810c2666-cd09-11e5-914f-6bcdeeb9dd41.html
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While most towns in Atlantic County are close to or above true value assessment, three towns are way below 100% based on sales data.
Port Republic 58.54%
Mullica 61.56%
Folsom 64.23%
See Chart in above article
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Highest and lowest property taxes in the state
http://www.nj.com/politics/index.ssf/2016/02/which_nj_counties_have_the_highest_lowest_property.html
4 comments:
Bad Idea. The county should not be picking winners and losers to the tax revaluation lottery game. It would be very near impossible for local communities to control taxes. Local control by local government officials is always better than pushing power up the food chain.
Local governments can be held accountable. County, State & Federal governments are much less accountable and need to be restrained.
I agree with first post .Some towns are reluctant to do revaluations for the sake of the increased costs to most residents in tax rates and the fact that the anger that follows leads to the incumbents losing the next election as in Mullica in the early 1990s. If the County takes over towns lose control of when they wish to do revals. Since the purpose of revals is usually to raise tax revnue its a sure bet that they would occur every 5 to 10 years. Towns like Mullica are especially in the mix since the last reval was about 20 years or more ago.It is a fact that the County was other government entities needs funds rather than doing drastic cuts.This is the way they will replenish their budget and this area really has been squeezed enough. Look at the houses that are not only for sale but have been for sale quite awhile. I hope Mayor Brown realizes whats up.
Revals done right are revenue neutral as the tax rates are adjusted to reflect the changes in assessed values. The purpose is not to raise tax revenue but to maintain fairness between all property owners. The primary "victims" of a reval are the property owners that have made improvements to their properties without obtaining required permits. These property owners get the benefit of not paying their fair share based on the increased value of their improved properties and then they get rewarded with a windfall when they sell the property. Having municipalities within the county that have far different assessed valuations relative to the market causes inequities resulting from attempts to normalize the impacts of these over or under market assessments.
I have to agree will all the posts in parts. I do believe all the Republican administrations delayed a reval because of political repercussions. All the older homes in Mullica are going to be hit hard now by this 20+year delay even if they had no improvements. No matter who does the revaluation, going from 61% of value to 100% is going to hurt the majority of people even if the tax rates are adjusted. The Brown administration has kept tax increases lower than they should have been by using our surplus and taking out bonds to pay for our bills. The people of Mullica now have a ton of debt and less savings, all for the political rhetoric on flyers "we kept taxes low and did not cut services". We're in for a big hit. The only way out for them is to let the Dems take over and endure all the wrath and blame when the hammer comes down. That will take 2 election cycles and I don't think there's time. They should have put up two bad candidates for this past election if they were smart.
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