Recently, many towns in our area have announced that due to necessary budget increases, real estate taxes will be increasing this year. Bedminster, the town I live in, will increase by 3.9 % (As noted in an April 16th article posted in this newspaper). Increases in healthcare costs are the main reason for the increases. This sounds reasonable. And for the record, I believe that folks that run our town do a very good job.
But there is a very simple way for all of us to actually have our real estate taxes decreased and still pay the additional healthcare costs. Well, when I say all of us, I mean the non-Fake-Farmer community. Unfortunately, we have over 300 Fake-Farmers residing in Bedminster. These Fake-Farmers are still bamboozling their neighbors, demanding that, we the people, pay their real estate taxes – the nerve!
Fake-Farmers have absolutely no shame. They hide behind the Farmland Assessment Act of 1964. 1964 People! It was created to help poor farmers who could not afford to pay their rising real estate taxes…in 1964. It was not created to allow the mega-rich with five acres of property to transfer their real estate tax obligation to their less fortunate neighbors.
It’s pretty easy to spot a Fake-Farmer (FF-a third F is optional). If you drive past a large property and notice a small card table set up at the end of the driveway, that’s a tell-tale sign of a FF. On said table, there might be a jar or two of honey for sale. These are “wood bee” Fake-Farmers. Another give away is if the table holds a collection of twigs and branches tied together with kite string. This demonstrates the property is a forest, and forest products are included in the Farmland Assessment Act. All of these items will be for sale at a modest price as they are what’s called, Fake-Farmer Products (FFP…again, third F is optional).
Another way to spot a Fake Farmer is to look up town records related to the annual Farmland Assessment qualification forms. The old threshold used to be the sale of at least $1,000 a year of Farmland products. Generally, what you’ll see in these forms is that these Fake-Farmers will record that they sold $1,002 or $1,003 each year. My thought is this, if you’re going to lie to us, at least put the effort in to come up with a number that has a speck of believability to it. Not only are Fake-Farmers shameless, they’re lazy and insulting.
And for reasons unbeknownst to me, our New Jersey Assemblymen and Senators who have the ability to make significant, meaningful changes to the Farmland Assessment Act, refuse to do so. If I were a negative person, living in an alternate universe, I’d say one possible reason is that some of our politician’s largest donors are Fake-Farmers…but that would be crazy, right? (Note: earlier this year the threshold of farm products required to be sold annually was increased from $1,000 to $1,900…a meaningless, increase)
To get a jaw dropping idea of how much money is involved in Bedminster alone, we have over 300 Farmland Assessed properties. Among them are Donald Trump, Woody Johnson, the owner of the NY Jets, and the Malcom Forbes estate. Together, these three Fake-Farmers cumulatively own almost 1,000 acres of land they say is farmland. These three Fake-Farmers get to save almost $1 million in property taxes that are subsidized (PAID For) by the middle-class people living in Bedminster. It gets worse. Imagine how many additional tax dollars the middle class of Bedminster is paying for the “Other 300 Fake-Farmers”! (Thanks for the data points Jack Curtis – now part of the Farmland Oversight Committee)
Gang, this is nothing more than an entitlement program, like Food Stamps/SNAP. But unlike Food Stamps, where you have an annual income ceiling of ~ $39,000 for a two-person household; the Farmland Assessment entitlement for wealthy Fake-Farmers has no income ceiling.
Keep in mind, the Stay NJ real estate tax credit program for the middle class is being cutback to meet budget shortfalls…but not the Farmland Assessment program.
If you want the Farmland Assessment Act changed in a meaningful way, write to your New Jersey Legislators. People like:
The Honorable Mikie Sherrill, Governor of the State of New Jersey, Office of the Governor, P.O. Box 001, Trenton, NJ 08625
Craig Coughlin, State Assembly Speaker, 569 Rahway Avenue, Woodbridge, NJ 07095
Douglas Steinhardt, State Senator, 127 Belvidere Avenue – 2nd Floor, Washington, NJ 07882
John DiMaio, Assembly Minority Leader, 208 Mountain Ave.~ Suite 3, Hackettstown, NJ 07840
Erik Peterson, State Assemblyman, 28 Center Street, Clinton, NJ 08809
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