By Steve Gunn
EAGnews.org

ASBURY PARK, N.J. – Public schools and other local governments frequently run into revenue problems when their funders get tired of picking up the tab.

And their funders, at the local level, tend to be property owners.

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They get soaked on a regular basis to pay for services that many in the community enjoy. That’s because government has long operated on the assumption that if a person has the means to own property, they must have the means to pay high tax rates.

We all know how untrue that is. Many people across the nation have been struggling to maintain their property through the recent recession. They have barely managed to avoid walking away from their homes, which hundreds of thousands were forced to do.

No wonder they get so upset when local governments hike their tax rates.

Now one newspaper, the Asbury Park Press, is calling on New Jersey leaders to change this unfair system in a state with unusually high property tax rates. It’s about time someone raised this serious issue.

The editorial credited state leaders for capping property tax increases at two percent, but added that simply “slowing the rate of increases is not enough.”

“The core structural problem with the property tax remains – we have too much government that’s too costly to operate, and the funding mechanism for that government is too heavily tilted toward property taxes, which are unfair because they don’t take into account an individual’s ability to pay,” the editorial said.

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The newspaper noted that 42 percent of all taxes paid by New Jersey residents in 2010 were property taxes. Only one other state – New Hampshire – relied more heavily on property taxes.

The average New Jersey property tax bill in 2011 increased by approximately $7,500, more than double the national average, according to the editorial.

“Shrinking the overall size of our bloated government is paramount,” the editorial said. “So, too, is devising a system in which perhaps some of the state’s sales tax or income tax revenue, or something else, is shared at the local level to fund schools.

“Obscene property taxes have been an issue here for years. It’s time our readers resolved to actually do something about it. Better models exist in other states; it’s simply a matter of having the courage to adopt one.”