Recently, a survey found barely 50 percent of New Jersey residents thought the state was a good place to live. It’s tough to live in a state with the worst business climate in the nation, and pay the highest average property tax bill.
Governor Phil Murphy’s first executive budget promises to make the state even more unwelcoming by crushing Jersey families and businesses with up to $1.7 billion in new taxes and fees.
That figure totals more than 4 percent of the state budget. It would be a mammoth tax increase on people who cannot afford it.
The $1.7 billion-plus tax hike facing New Jerseyans includes:
- $765 million millionaire’s tax hike.
- Increasing tax on income over $1M from 8.97 percent to 10.75 percent
- $581 million sales tax hike.
- Sales tax increased to 7 percent.
- Adding sales tax on Uber, Lyft, and Airbnb
- Expanding Internet sales tax beyond New Jersey’s borders
- $59 million from new tax on vaping products, and hike on tobacco products.
- 75 percent wholesale tax on e-cigarettes
- Increasing wholesale tax on tobacco products to 68 percent
- $100 million carried interest money grab
The sales tax would be increased overall – and piled onto ridesharing services like Uber and Lyft, and homesharing platforms like Airbnb. Murphy’s budget expands the Internet sales tax across borders, making online shopping more expensive and smashing constitutional taxpayer protections.
A millionaire’s tax would be added, just as the Governor complains about new limits on state and local tax deductions hurting wealthy residents – a reminder he’s concerned about milking these folks for revenue, not about reducing their tax burden.
New taxes proposed for vaping products risk crushing the industry in New Jersey – killing jobs.
Murphy’s budget also includes a “fee” (actually a tax) on carried interest. There is no carried interest “loophole”, but either way that is a debate about the federal code, it’s not a state issue. It’s an insult to peoples’ intelligence to sell them on a tax hike with inaccurate “loophole” talk.
New Jersey taxpayers should aggressively oppose this plan, and urge Democrat and Republican lawmakers alike to stand against Murphy’s unfair, unaffordable tax hike spree.