To: Senator Madden, Assemblyman Moriarty & Assmblywoman Mosquers
American Citizens Lobbyist Group
New Jersey
Monday, 4.21.14
Budget Time in Trenton Part 4
Reduce
or Eliminate the Real Estate Transfer Fee
ASSEMBLY,
No. 389 Eliminates general purpose, supplemental and mansion realty transfer fees.
PRE-FILED FOR INTRODUCTION IN THE 2014 SESSION
Sponsored by: Assemblyman ANTHONY M.
BUCCO, District 25 (Morris and Somerset)
Assemblyman MICHAEL PATRICK CARROLL, District
25 (Morris and Somerset)
Co-Sponsored by: Assemblymen Rumana and C.A.Brown
In 1968 the State of New
Jersey decided to impose a real estate transfer tax
to offset the cost of tracking real estate transactions.
Jarrod Grasso, chief executive of the New Jersey
Association of Realtors, said the fees were “nominal” until 2003 and 2004, when
former Gov. Jim McGreevy and the state Legislature increased them in
back-to-back years.
This nominal fee is no longer nominal. As usual NJ has
some of the highest transfer fees in the country. Instead of being used to
track real estate transactions, the fees now are put into the general fund. These
transfer fees make up the seventh-largest source of revenue for the state.
Sell your home for $300,000 — the median sale price in
the state last month — and you’ll owe the New Jersey tax man a hefty $1,700.
The out of control spending by this
state has led our former legislators to be hoodwinked into driving this fee up
so high that current legislators are saying we cannot eliminate or reduce this
fee because we need it to pay for beach erosion projects.
These funds were not earmarked for beach
erosion or for the general fund; they were earmarked for real estate
transactions.
Thirteen states have no Real Estate Transfer Fee.
AK, ID, IN, LA, MS, MT, MO, ND, NM, OR, TX, UT AND WY. AZ has a
$2.00 fee per transaction.
We have three suggestions.
Reduce the rate significantly, charge a
flat fee like AZ regardless of the sale
price of your house or eliminate the Fee altogether.
And then stop wasteful and unnecessary spending.
American Citizens Lobbyist
Group-NJ
Basil Mantagas, NJ Director, 646-825-0776, bmantagas.aclg@gmail.com
4.21.14,
Budget time in Trenton Part 4