Center Square NJ: New Jersey residents may get property tax deadline extension, but not lower taxes

By Sarah Downey

(The Center Square) – With unemployment rising and businesses in New Jersey still closed, an executive order that lets municipalities decide whether to extend the property tax due date from May 1 to June 1 doesn’t do enough for cash-strapped constituents, a local policy group says.

“While the pandemic is no one’s fault in New Jersey, the policies and decisions made by [Gov. Phil Murphy] lay squarely in his lap,” Regina M. Egea, president of the Garden State Initiative (GSI), said in an email response to The Center Square. “This Executive Order, consistent with his inclination to defer decisions rather than affirmatively plot a positive direction, puts on display his lack of appreciation of the scope of the economic damage his administration has been creating since taking office.”

The order gives the choice to local governing bodies, not individual taxpayers, Egea said.

“It’s better to focus on the big picture, not a headline grabbing measure that is more symbolic than actually offering real relief to taxpayers.”

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