NJ.com: Mulshine – Restore state and local tax breaks for Jersey? That’s rich, says a federal judge

As F. Scott Fitzgerald famously said, “The rich are different from you and me.”

Ernest Hemingway supposedly retorted that the difference is that “They’ve got a lot more money.”

That’s why we want them around. They pump a lot of money into the local economy. And they pay a lot more in taxes.

The other day I was in the library of my local recycling center when I came up a magazine presumably left by some well-to-do neighbor called the Robb Report that shows just how different the rich are.

There was an article about what sort of yachts are being bought by wealthy heirs and heiresses these days. It seems that millennials don’t want to spend too much. They’re settling for mere 100-footers instead of the 200-footers their parents might have bought.

Then there was an ad for houses in an enclave inside Walt Disney World called Golden Oak. It showed a mansion the size of an English manor house. Prices start at $2 million, it said.

Like every New Jerseyan, the first question that came to mind was: What would the property taxes be on a crib like that?

About $30,000 a year, a spokeswoman told me when I called. Meanwhile Florida has no income tax.

New Jersey is in competition for the sort of people who buy those places. But our taxes are a lot higher. And a decision by a federal judge earlier this week eliminates one avenue for reducing those taxes.

Read the full column here.