West Orange and surrounding

[tahiti]

[quote=bradykp;20857989]

Originally Posted by tahiti

yeah, sure "over 40% less"....meaning cedar grove's effective rate is 1.657% and west orange's is 2.954%....or a 1.297% difference. it's nothing to laugh at, but the it's much less dramatic than saying 40%. yes, we pay more in west orange. we have a larger population. we have more city services. i'd love to see my taxes lower, but there are a lot of factors, and commercial space is certainly a decent factor. look at parmus's taxes...

i guess you mean paramus? i didn't look them up, but I guess I'd ask the same question if they are in the same boat as WO.

what about livingston?

I'm not knocking WO but I don't know why it's so dramatically more than other towns in the same county and I don't think it's as easy as saying "we have more services".....

am i pissing you off yet? lol!

[ssd005]

[quote=bradykp;20859045]

Originally Posted by ssd005

as i said above, the general rate is based on the town's assessment. west orange just did an assessment, so the new general tax rate is around 3.4%. the effective tax rate is an estimation to normalize across towns for comparisons...based on market values. so the 13% WO rate was based on assessments from the 80s with houses assessed well below $100,000....

LOL wow, so they were still going by that tax rate of the 80's and only woke up in 2011 to do a reassessment??!

[bradykp]

Originally Posted by ssd005

LOL wow, so they were still going by that tax rate of the 80's and only woke up in 2011 to do a reassessment??!

i don't think you understand fully.

a town needs $100,000,000 to operate...they don't do assessments every year to ensure the tax rate is correct. they change the tax rate periodically, based on the assessment, to ensure the revenue is correct.

it's not really that important, except for when you start mixing in newer homes that are dispraportionate to the rest of town.

so, if a house was assessed at $75,000 in 1990...they just increased the tax rate to ensure they collected enough revenue. now that the house is assessed at $400,000, they pay a lower rate, but the same dollars, essentially.

[bradykp]

[quote=tahiti;20859060]

Originally Posted by bradykp

i guess you mean paramus? i didn't look them up, but I guess I'd ask the same question if they are in the same boat as WO.

what about livingston?

I'm not knocking WO but I don't know why it's so dramatically more than other towns in the same county and I don't think it's as easy as saying "we have more services".....

am i pissing you off yet? lol!

paramus has very low taxes because of the amount of commercial space there. but, you have to deal with route 17 and 4...pick your evils. i'll take higher taxes personally.

WO taxes? it appears as though the cities in the county range from around 1.548 to 3.3...i don't know that i would call that dramatic, given the different makeups of each city.

Population Size
City Services
School population
Commercial tax base

etc. there are a number of factors.