Tax Appeal Bill Introduced to Change Filing Deadlines Statewide
Two New Jersey assemblymen have introduced Assembly Bill A-3313 which would make a Monmouth County tax appeal pilot program applicable statewide. The program would permanently modify the timing of the appeal season and filing requirements in an attempt to settle assessment disputes prior to municipalities enacting their annual budgets. Although no feedback has been provided that the pilot program actually accomplished this goal in the one year that the pilot program was active, the law would revise the relevant statutory dates for assessing real property, and then appealing those assessments, in the following ways:
- Notification of Assessment postcards must be sent by the municipality to property owners by November 15 of the pretax year, as opposed to the current deadline of February 1 of the tax year;
- Appeals of assessments to the county tax board must be filed by January 15 of the tax year, instead of the current April 1st deadline;
- The deadline for filing appeals of assessments that exceed $1 million made directly to the Tax Court remains April 1 of the tax year.
What’s unclear is why the April 1st deadline remains for appeals filed directly to the Tax Court if the intended goal is to settle disputes before municipal budgets are finalized throughout the summer. As we had previously reported, tax appeal practitioners around New Jersey have questioned whether this program will achieve its intended goals, and are concerned that the implementation of the program on a piecemeal basis may instead complicate the ability of the County Tax Boards and the New Jersey Tax Court to administer and resolve the significant caseload of appeals already pending and which is likely to continue into the future.
A copy of the bill may be found by clicking here. The bill was introduced earlier this summer and has been referred to the Assembly State and Local Government Committee, where it awaits review.
For more discussion on this topic, please see the following blog posts:
Legislative Reform For Tax Assessments On The Way?
