Estate Tax Abolished
This is good for the state and good for keeping retired people from not fleeing the state.
My children will benefit of having this extra money that could only help in this cruel world - least it goes to them and not NJ govt.
MamaJama22But at the expense of raising the gas tax .23/gallon... Seems kinda unfair and idiotic!!! Every time I stop n get gas now I feel like I'm getting screwed that much more!!!!!!!!! Hopefully they will impeach this joke we call governor!! Just another way to screw the middle class without "Raising Taxes"!!
Mr. Tone 
Gardenfish Fair? Why should only people who have parents that SAVED MONEY or PAID OFF THIER HOUSE pay tax...AGAIN? On money that was already taxed? The gas tax is actually MUCH fairer... everyone who drive a vehicle pays the extra tax. And I dare say, the gas tax will raise even MORE money than the estate tax would.
Alot of you probably like the estate tax because it sounds like something only "rich" people pay. You're wrong.
Besides, the bill also has stuff everyone should like in it:
"The deal also would raise the Earned Income Tax Credit, which helps low-income residents, to 35% from 30% for the current tax year, as well as increase the tax exclusion on retirement income over four years to $100,000 for joint filers. Veterans would get a personal exemption for state income taxes under the measure."
JeffersonRepub Mama, you saved and were prudent to accumulate. You deserve to pass it down to anyone but the government...
iJay I think it's good they abolished the estate tax but probably need to put some perspective on it.
First, IMO the reason it's good to abolish is that it's been abolished for all but the uber rich at the Federal level. More important, only 15 states are left with an estate tax and more are dropping it every year. A couple of these are at over $5M and a number are at over $1M. New Jersey's was graduated started at $675K, an archaic Federal standard and pretty easy to get to given your house is included. The Federal standard moved to $5.45M.
NJ still has inheritance tax however immediate family members and descendents are exempt. FYI, in-laws are not immediate..... Between 11 and 16%. Only 5 other states have inheritance tax.
Beyond competition with other states for retiree's, both of these taxes seem unfair given that the money has already been taxed one time. So in passing these assets to our heirs, the state is effectively taxing the money a second time, this time on the heir.
However, to suppose we are balancing this with the gas tax is not really true; the gas tax goes to roads, the estate tax went to general revenues. So the loss of the estate tax will still need to be made up either by increased revenue taxes or lower spending.
And saying this will stop the flow of retiree's leaving the state (which legislators say will make up for the tax revenue loss) is probably bogus. Most of us will leave the state at retirement due to egregious property taxes which, unlike income, remain constant throughout retirement. That remains unchanged in all this and NJ again is completely uncompetitive. Most, if not all, other states do not rely on property as their main source of tax revenue. So NJ still remains a "no country for old men" amongst the other states.
Average tax revenues from property is 35% across the land, including NJ. NJ gets close to 50% of it's revenue from property. Estate tax does not affect your day-to-day expenses, property tax does and NJ's is the highest in the land.
So NJ legislators may have done the right thing here, but they certainly did it the wrong way and most certainly did not address the problem of NJ retirees fleeing the state to lower their monthly bills.
We have a number of wanderers still on-line to the site. So Bryan, Mark, et al ----- how much did you lower your property tax upon moving and did you notice other taxes taking it's place? Informal poll not proving anything (except Trump won the dahbate :>)
strangerdanger Mr. Tone, the middle class doesn't own businesses, farms, homes that are subject to the estate tax? Like Strangergoogle said, 675k is a fairly easy mark to hit. People won't have to sell out to pay the taxes on inherited properties.
A couple bucks a week is not a burden and like JR said, there isn't much that is more fair than a consumption tax.
MeisterNJ Well Meister a couple bucks for you may not be a burden for you but for me it is... I already pay more than my fair share!!!! As a small buisness owner that employees 6 people higher fuel costs hurt!!!!! There are other ways to generate revenue than to consistently burden the middle class!!!!!!!! And when they artificiality inflate gas prices again it's going to hurt that much more!!!!
As a small business owner with six employees that use a lot of fuel, you put more than your fair share of wear and tear on the roads.
ianimal Some years before retirement, I researched areas I might like to retire to. I picked N.C. because it does have seasons but the winters are much milder than here. I pay around 10,000.00 a year here on property tax on a modest 4 bedroom house. This same house with the same land if it were in N.C. would cost 2000.00 to 2500.00 a year in property tax. Granted there are county taxes for schools, services etc.. And initial registration of our cars will be higher, But all told I will save at least 6000.00 a year on taxes. That's 500.00 extra in my pocket each month. These are rough numbers but it illustrates that NJ is very expensive for retiree's to live here. Not to mention the politics here of public figures lowering costs on one place, but raising them in other places. We love the area and the people here, but see no financial reason to allow us to stay here. Most people I know that are retiring plan to leave as well to lower tax states.
boobalaa Although the estate tax might have affected me the elimination of it has no bearing on my staying in NJ after retirement. I can own a home in SC where we are going at less than a rental up here. Car insurance is a third of what I pay up here. There is more than one reason to leave NJ when you retire and the estate tax abatement will not help keep many people here.
MK MK - As someone who lived in NJ moved to SC but recently moved back. Don't assume you will be saving money. It looks like at first you are saving but they get you in other ways. You are paying taxes on everything in SC, I mean everything. Also as far as car insurance, yes the rates are lower but your coverage is crap. We opted for the highest level of auto insurance in SC, which was still cheaper than NJ's insurance. Still got screwed when a tree fall on my husband's SUV totaling. Insurance agent told us because our insurance was SC based that legally they only had to cover up a certain % to pay off of the car. Now our NJ before would have covered what was still owed on the car plus more. You get what you pay for in SC.
Mommyof3 "You are paying taxes on everything in SC, I mean everything."
Well, in addition to income/property tax (just like NJ has), the only "extra" one is vehicle taxes. Kinda pricy at first, but goes down every year as the car is worth less. Plus, if you buy a car here sales tax is capped at $300. That could save you a few thousand up front to cover the property taxes for several years (unfortunately I bought my latest truck before I moved so I missed that deal). At this point, my old truck is only ~$30/year which is the minimum rate.
Boats are weird... both the boat and motor are taxed, but it's done differently if you buy them separately instead of as a package I think. Car registration and driver's licenses are cheaper as it's every 2 years and 10 years respectively.
Property costs are generally significantly lower for comparably sized homes to NJ (but there are still million+ dollar homes mixed in). Property taxes are definitely lower, especially for primary residences, which are exempt from school tax.
I was paying over $6K on my 1200 sq ft / 0.25 acre house in Hackettstown. I'm closing on a house this Tuesday... 2000 sq ft / 5.85 acres... taxes are ~$1,400.
66% more house, 2300% more land, similar purchase price, and less than 1/4 the taxes.
Oh, and no inheritance or estate tax...
Although it does come at the expense of good pizza and bagels!
Mark Mc. "Now our NJ before would have covered what was still owed on the car"
Sounds like you had gap insurance in NJ but not SC. Did you change companies?
I kept the same company/coverage and my rates went down slightly (not drastically) although they always creep up year over year.
And here we were always told that democrats are the only ones that like taxing people. Go figure.
ChristieIsAnIdiot 
hktownie But isn't the sales tax going down from 7% to 6.875%? That will save a lot of money in taxes right. Sounds like bad math to me. They mismanage the road fund and go to the middle class to bail them out. What a joke.
Mark Mc - Same insurance company in both states. Had the same coverage too just different laws in SC. SC laws are a joke by the way.
You pay tax on clothes and food in SC as well. The auto tax was insane! My 2012 toyota tax was over $450 a year and my husband's was higher. That was after we disputed it because the bills came and both our cars had the exact same tax. Which made no sense. We had to go with kelly blue value and odometer reading.
Yes property tax is much lower there but you get what you pay for. Roads are a mess, people thing NJ roads are bad, they have seen nothing. The schools are a joke too. If we stayed in SC our kids would have needed private school. SO at the end of the day it would have cost me over 20K to send the to private school. My property taxes in NJ were far lower!
Well it does make sense to tax the vehicles. How many people live in a trailer but have an expensive pickup? They need to pay more taxes and vehicles is the way to do it. This way the retired couple with one old car don't pay as much.
People go there after the kids are gone. Take a college acquaintance of mine whose schoolteacher parents both moved to Spartansburg. And to top it off they leave their retarded son in a home up here. They take the pension and medical with them and leave their retarded son behinds as a burden...
"Well it does make sense to tax the vehicles. How many people live in a trailer but have an expensive pickup?"
Yea.. if you buy into the whole idea that the government is entitled to your money just because they say so....
I buy a car they tax it, I sell it to you, they tax it, you sell it to someone else, they tax it.
Or, I 'purchase' land or a house--- even if I pay off the loan, I don't own it, if I don't pay the tax- they kick me out. Who's land is it really then?
They can (and do and will continue to) raise the tax as they like...hence I don't really own it.
America was fought and founded with blood sweat and tears over the British for waaaaay less tax than we put up with these days, but people now take it for normal and nothing will change. It is a sorry state of affairs.
They are not entitled to what we work for, and if they spent the money correctly, the levels would be a very small percentage of what they are now. I have no problem paying MY fair share- for what I use- but if you guys actually read a list of what our taxes go to- there is ZERO excuse for it, even with the bleeding hearts.
Josh Ah to be young again...
If no one else was watching, the reason not to eliminate estate tax altogether is Donald Trump. Maybe we're not all familiar with the way the .01%'ers are doing it, his tax forms show why the estate tax exists. Buy long term assets on huge debt. Write down all your assets today against future income. Then make sure you sell gradually balancing more debt and some gains to even out. The IRS was never worried because even if you fraudulently took depreciation and didn't retake the gains later, you got hit with estate tax eventually. Otherwise you let open the possibility of a life time of tax avoidance.
That still doesn't mean double taxation is right, and there are aspects of estate tax where that happens. You need to either make fluctuations in assets equitable in all directions, or you need to fix estate tax so it doesn't double tax with something like a higher minimum and/or only on the write down.
GC Gc; fed level you ate right and a good reason not to votes trumps personal 3B profit. State level you have too. Most other states have or will be shortly.
Never iPhone text in bright sunlight....
GC: At Federal Ievel, I agree. The estate tax is only at the uber rich level and should not be abolished. Sure, from one standpoint it is not fair (is any tax?), and the money might be taxed twice -- when it was made and when it was given away. But as Trump has shown us, the uber rich are often not taxed in the first instance when they make it. They have been extremely fortunate in one way or another to make this kind of cash ---- whether angels or devils --- they are indeed fortunate. And ONLY in America could they make this kind of dough ---- so from another standpoint, kicking a little back at death (a little for them) into the citizenry pot from whence they were so lucky to succeed seems fair enough to me ---- not like they need it at this point.
Plus those receiving it are just pure df lucky so not all that unfair to skim a little off the top before their ship comes in.
At the state level I would say the same thing except most state have abolished the estate tax, most others will do so shortly so having a state estate tax puts the state at risk to lose those wealthy enough to afford to move. So abolishing it is a good thing if NJ is to remain competitive in keeping retirees in the state which is good for all of us and our house values.
Of course, as my other tomes have noted, unless the tax structure is modified to not be 50% reliant on property taxes, abolishing the state tax will have no effect and the retirees will keep leaving at the same record numbers. In my case, as soon as the retirement bell rings, I am out of here. Wyoming tourist country here I come --- low taxes, high wages, and everyone looking for a good time!
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