proerty taxes | THE RIDGEWOOD BLOG.
Trenton NJ, around two years ago, New Jersey’s richest resident , hedge fund billionaire David Tepper decided to move himself and his business to Miami Beach. Tepper, who personally earned more than $6 billion from 2012-2015, was tired of paying New Jersey’s top income-tax rate of 8.97% for the 20 years he lived there, in addition to the country’s highest property taxes, the estate tax and inheritance tax. By moving to Florida, a state with ZERO income tax, Tepper stood to save hundreds of millions of dollars each year. Tepper’s departure left an enormous hole in the New Jersey budget .
Anyone with an ounce of common sense would have at least acknowledged the possibility that a guy like Tepper would consider moving to save a few hundred million dollars , anyone that is except ,”stuck on stupid ” Trenton .
Tepper is not the only one to leave , according to the New Jersey Business and Industry Association, the State of New Jersey lost a whopping 2 million residents between 2005 and 2014, earning a combined $18 billion in net adjusted gross income, i.e. income that would have been taxed by the state.
With those out flow numbers Its not just the masters of the universe that are tired of paying sky-high taxes. It’s also the regular wage earner and small business owners. A whopping 60% of these folks went to Florida, with a state income tax of zero.
So the message from New Jersey’s residents (well, now former residents) is loud and clear: taxes are too high!
Now, what do you think New Jersey is doing to solve this problem?
New Jersey residents elected a governor that promised to raise their taxes, so instead of making the state friendlier to productive people and businesses , New Jersey has embarked on a program of driving out tax payers and replacing them with tax takers .
New Jersey now taxes residents making more than $5 million will now pay 10.75%, up from 8.97%.The corporate rate on businesses with more than $1 million in net income was also increased from 9% to 11.5% (Proportionally, that’s a potentially 27% increase in the amount of tax a business might pay).
This will simply exacerbate the problem even more ,chasing more businesses and people out of the state .