A New Jersey Property-Tax Primer
Unlike in Pennsylvania, where reassessments are conducted by counties, the task in New Jersey falls under the purview of individual municipalities.
Unlike in Pennsylvania,
where reassessments are conducted by counties, the task in New Jersey falls under the purview of individual municipalities.
New Jersey
also does not use millage, the tax per $1,000 of assessed value. Instead, it uses a tax rate - the amount per $100 of value - that is applied to the assessment. In a town with a rate of 3.00, the property tax on a home assessed at $100,000 would be $3,000.
Technically,
the assessments are supposed to represent 100 percent of value. However, in many communities, they are well below that figure. Under state guidelines, when they fall out of kilter, the county should order the municipality to reassess. But many towns have not reassessed in more than 10 years.
As a result,
the assessments in those towns represents a much smaller percentage of market value. For instance, in Camden County, the percentage varies from 46 in Cherry Hill to 103 in Haddon Heights.
New Jersey law
requires that all properties in a given town be assessed at the same percentage of market value, be it 100, 80 or 50 percent. Property owners who believe their assessments are significantly above the town-wide average can appeal to the county.
The state
publishes those averages annually, and the Treasury Department produces tables that show the real tax rates based on true market values - or "effective tax rates."
For example,
a town might have a tax rate of 3.00 applied to its assessments. But if, on average, they represent only 50 percent of market value, the real or effective tax rate would be 1.50, or $1,500 for every $100,000 of true market value.
The Treasury Department tables can be found online at