Chapter 91 Strikes Another Taxpayer

Name: McKirdy & Riskin, P.A.
Address: 136 South Street, Morristown, NJ, 07850
Telephone: 973-539-8900

Home » Property Tax Appeal » Chapter 91 Strikes Another Taxpayer

by: Anthony F. Della Pelle

1 Aug 2011

Another appeal dismissed for failure to respond to request for income and expense information

In the latest of a string of recent cases highlighting the harsh effect of N.J.S.A. 54:4-34, the Tax Court held that a municipal tax assessor’s request to a taxpayer for income and expense information, commonly referred to as a “Chapter 91” request, need not explain the consequences of failure to respond in a timely fashion.

Last week, in James-Dale Enterprises, Inc. v. Township of Berkley Heights, the court declined to follow the suggestion in a 2004 case, Southland Corp. v. Township of Dover, that the Chapter 91 request “must spell out the consequences of failure to comply with the assessor’s demand, namely a bar to the taxpayers taking of an appeal from its assessment.” Instead, the court held that the assessor’s request in this case, which informed the taxpayer that failure to respond to the request in a timely fashion “may” result in the dismissal of a subsequently filed challenge to an assessment, was accurate and not misleading. In so holding the court relied upon a more recent Chapter 91 case, Town of Phillipsburg v. ME Realty, L.L.C., in which the court stated its disagreement with Southland.

These cases illustrate the increasing difficulty that is being experienced by many taxpayers who have filed property tax appeals in recent times. With the number of filed appeals continuing to climb each year, record volumes of appeals remain pending in the Tax Court, and dismissals upon procedural grounds have appeared to become more commonplace.