Snail Farming for Fun & Profit...and Tax Evasion

Recently, I was reading about a real estate tax scam that criminals are using in London.  It goes something like this: They set up a shell company that breed snails in an empty office block. (the snails are actually bred in shoe boxes, seriously.) Then they claim that the office block is legally, against all indications to the contrary, a farm, and therefore exempt from paying real estate taxes.

This sounds so familiar, where have I heard this before?  Ah yes, the New Jersey Farmland Assessment Act, where wealthy New Jerseyans offload their real estate tax burden onto the vast majority of the middle class.  I need to reread the Farmland Assessment Act and see if Snails qualify.  This would be great for ALL New Jersey residents.  We would just need to buy a pair of shoes, avoid recycling the box and instead, start a snail farm – Genius!  If you want to go big, think about those boxes that printer paper comes in.  You could become the snail king or queen of Somerset county.  The only problem in doing this, we’d run the risk of collapsing the thriving escargot industry.  But fair is fair.  You win some, you lose some.

The above situation is real, as is the situation in New Jersey where people who own at least five acres of property, often claim that they are farmers…against all indications to the contrary.  The Farmland Assessment Act was originally implemented to help poor farmers who could not afford to pay their rising real estate taxes.  Unfortunately, the skinflint wealthy are using it today to avoid paying their fair share of real estate taxes.  Instead, they want their neighbors to pay their taxes for them.  Nice, right!?!

Listed below is the gist of a recent letter I sent to the Governor asking him for a small measure of help to right the wrongs being put upon the large middle class of New Jersey.

Listed below are some reasonable solutions for your consideration:  

1) Increase the Inspection Fee from $25 to $295 ~ (The current $25 fee makes doing inspections unaffordable)

2) Increase the minimum acreage requirement from Five to Ten acres 

3) Establish a $400,00 ceiling for applicant’s New Jersey Gross Income (Line 29 on the NJ 1040) ~ (Most New Jersey social programs like ANCHOR, Medicaid, SNAP, etc. have income limits to be able to use the program)

4) Increase Fraudulent Claim Fines from $5,000 to $25,000

These simple, easy to implement changes will have a major, positive impact on New Jersey’s middle class.  At the same time, it will not affect the larger properties that are actually working farms.  Hoping you see the merits to these actions, and can execute some, if not all of them.

Folks, if this does not work, I say we give snails a shot.  Worst case we avoid having to add them to the endangered species list sometime in the near future.