Homestead property tax relief information downright confusing

by Jeff Johnson Jr.

In case anyone else is confused, here's the state's latest update on the process for applying for a 2007 Homestead property tax rebate. Fair warning: If you're already confused, you're likely to be confused more by following that link. Let me see if I can clarify. No, I won't bother. Let me demonstrate to you how confusing it is (as if you don't already know).

Apparently, if you're a homeowner over age 65, the deadline has been extended to August 15 from June 2. If you're like me and you're not over 65, the deadline has not been extended. But don't fret—that's because you weren't eligible to file yet at all. You only have to file early if you're old. In fact, you're not allowed to file early unless you're old. But then again, you don't have to file early if you're old, after all. I guess. I mean, if you're old, you're allowed to file early, but you're not required to—anymore, I mean.

Actually, if you're not old, you don't even have an application yet. That will come in the mail—if you're a homeowner.

If you're not a homeowner, but rather a tenant, you're still eligible for a property tax rebate—yes, it's true, since your landlord probably passes the property tax on to you in your rent—but you should have already filed the application with your state taxes, so the deadline was April 15. Unless you filed for an extension, in which case your application for the rebate was automatically also extended. I think.

In any case, if you're a tenant, this April 15 deadline was true whether you are over 65 or not. So, if you own a home, and you're over 65, the deadline to file has been extended, but if you're a tenant and you're over 65, the deadline has not been extended, unless you asked for it to be extended.

Wait, I just realized that all of the rules for people who are over 65 also apply if you're under 65 and disabled.

Got all that?

If you're able to parse all of that information, then maybe you can explain to me why we in the Garden State have to go through this ritual every year, anyway. Let me see if I understand it: Our municipalities have had to raise property taxes—in part, though clearly there are other reasons—because they cannot count on the same amount of assistance from the state and federal government anymore.

So, the state, which has trimmed its budget over the years to offer less assistance to the municipalities, instead pays cash to taxpayers who live in those municipalities to make up for the extra taxes they pay to the municipality due to less assistance from the state—and the federal government, who is at least customer-service-oriented enough to simply dump their version of this shell game directly into my bank account.

Not only are we robbing Peter to pay Paul the money he owes Peter, we've set up a costly administrative bureaucracy to accomplish the task that wouldn't be as necessary if we didn't have so much bureaucracy.

I guess at this point I should clarify what I meant in my earlier comments that "this is not a political blog." I guess what I meant was that this is a nonpartisan blog. A long succession of politicians from both major parties is responsible for getting us to where we are today.

New Jersey has a lot of annoyances that make life here endearing. This isn't one of them. This is just sick.

Jerseyhacker's mission and principles

by Jeff Johnson Jr.

This post is a little different. I just want to give you an idea of what Jerseyhacker is supposed to be about. I may update periodically, since I'm pretty much making this thing up as we go. There are several parts to this post:

About Jerseyhacker
Disclaimer
Mission
Thoughts on blogging in New Jersey
Thoughts on blogging in general
Guidelines for contributing content

• Comments
• Posts

About Jerseyhacker

Like all of the states that comprise the original 13 colonies of the United States, New Jersey exists in its current form because of people who acted on principle.

And while I prefer to shun most of the cliches surrounding the Garden State's hard-edged reputation, what the "attitude" in these cliches (e.g. "You gotta problem widdat?" "What's it to ya, pal?" and "Only the strong survive.") tells us that, whatever people think of Garden Staters, they know that we still have our principles.

Likewise, this blog has a few principles, as well as a mission statement, which you may find interesting if you're visiting us for the first time.

But before I get into that, there's just one thing I'd like you to know.

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Disclaimer

Please consider the following statement to sufficiently cover Jerseyhacker's proverbial rear end: Jerseyhacker's authors and contributors are not lawyers and do not pretend to be. Which is a good thing, because, (1) New Jersey has enough lawyers, and (2) why would anyone pretend to be a lawyer?

In other words, please don't interpret anything you read in this blog as legal advice. These are just shared experiences, not court decisions. You'll notice that Jerseyhacker articles about specific laws generally link back to other sources. You should consult those other sources for more information--but you can count on Jerseyhacker's posts to always make a good faith effort to be accurate and to direct you toward sources that may prove useful.

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Mission

Jerseyhacker's mission is to provide people who live in New Jersey or have an interest in New Jersey with practical information may be useful for maintaining or improving quality of life. Some examples of topics relevant to this blog include:

1. Stories about conditions and situations that make the Garden State's character unique, with starting points for getting more information.


2. News to raise our readers' awareness of current events and issues in the Garden State.


3. Summaries of laws, bylaws, rules, regulations, guidelines, ordinances, executive orders, charter documents, common practices, local customs, cultural expectations, stigma, social contracts, trends, bandwagons, urban legends, and any other codes, formal or informal, that shape life in the Garden State.

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On blogging in New Jersey

As the blogosphere grows, the number of blogs specifically about New Jersey is also growing. Many of these blogs take a very activist and confrontational approach, which I applaud--but Jerseyhacker is meant to serve a more pragmatic need.

Frequently missing from the public discourse in New Jersey is the answer to a simple question: (which you can imagine uttered in a New Jersey style): "What're you gonna do?"

As mentioned in the mission statement, Jerseyhacker's goal is to help people find solutions to the problems that they may encounter in the course of day-to-day life in the Garden State. Jerseyhacker does not endorse a particular political party--not because I'm uninterested in politics, but because there seems to be plenty of blame to go around for the conditions that exist in New Jersey.

This is all to say that, the market for political pundit blogs in New Jersey seems to be flooded. What we need is a solutions blog. That's the purpose of Jerseyhacker.

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Philosophy on blogging in general

Blogging is a medium, not a genre.

The general public is starting to get that, but there is still a lingering perception that "blog" is synonymous with twenty somethings engaging in virtual exhibitionism or political pundits eviscerating each other.

In fact, blogs are all that and more.

Blogs may well be the most versatile mode of communication ever created. Every type of medium, subject matter, purpose, level of interactivity, color, and level of quality that has ever existed in any other form can now be published as a blog. Meanwhile, blogs open the doors for us to experience communication in ways we never imagined.

True, blogs are more frequently written as first-person narratives than other forms of media, and Jerseyhacker's posts are no exception—but that doesn't mean Jerseyhacker is about its writers' personal lives. All of the posts on Jerseyhacker stem from someone's personal experience, but are not intended to be directly about the person.

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Guidelines for contributing content

Comments

Comments are welcome on all posts at all times. Simply click the appropriate link at the end of the post.

As of June 15, 2008, comments are not moderated. This may change depending on the number and type of comments that Jerseyhacker gets. Having seen that comment moderation is pretty standard for small blogs like this, comment moderation has been turned on as of June 20, 2008. I won't censor comments just because I don't agree with their ideas, but I do have to maintain some community standards:

1. I will delete libelous comments. Libel is a gray area, and I won't try to explain it here. It boils down to this: You're welcome to use Jerseyhacker as a place to air your grievances with the Garden State. Please don't use it as a tool for destroying individuals' personal reputations with falsehoods.


2. I won't say don't swear. In fact, go ahead: swear. But be reasonable. I suggest using foul language only on those rare occasions when you find gaps in your vocabulary. I'm guessing most readers can express most opinions without having to resort to words used to describe common sexual acts, certain sexual organs, a few bodily orifices, or the various fluids or substances that human beings excrete. However, I won't exclude anyone for a simple lack of vocabulary. I will, however, delete comments that are obviously created just for the sake of being crude. These usually aren't topical, anyway, which brings me to the last standard...


3. Stay topical. That is, make your comments have at least some relevance to the post. If it looks like you're just using Jerseyhacker as a place to post random announcements, I might remove your comment. If you spam, your comments will definitely be deleted. I won't try to define spam. I know it when I see it.

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Posts

I welcome any ideas for main articles. You're even more welcome to actually write the post, and I'll edit it for you, offer helpful suggestions, give you a byline, and post it. I also plan on adding other authors as time goes on. If you're interested, send me an e-mail to newjerseyblogs@gmail.com.

New Jersey family leave law has pros, cons

by Jeff Johnson Jr.

Like many states and the federal government, New Jersey has a family leave law that provides job protection to take care of a new child or certain seriously ill family members.

However, unlike the federal Family and Medical Leave Act, this doesn't cover the employee's own illness or disability.

While this looks like a disadvantage, it might not be. See Question #3 in the FAQs for the New Jersey law. For any situation that is covered by both the federal and state laws, an employee's eligibilty runs simultaneously. But if the employee must also take time off for his or her own disability, this difference in the laws may actually give him or her an added benefit:

"Thus, even though an employee may utilize all of his or her allotted time under the federal FMLA due to his or her disability, the employee may subsequently be entitled to time off under the NJFLA in connection with the birth or adoption of a child or the serious illness of a parent, child or spouse."

Yes, NJ has another primary election this Tuesday

by Jeff Johnson Jr.

If you're like me, then you may have not even realized until a couple of weeks ago that New Jersey has another primary election scheduled for this Tuesday, June 3, 2008. Or maybe you all knew and I'm just dense. Or maybe you didn't realize it until you read this, which means I'm not as out of it as I could be.

According to this Associated Press Q&A published in the Asbury Park Press on May 17, New Jersey separated its presidential primary race this year from all other primary races in order to give the state a bigger say in the presidential races:

Q: Didn't New Jersey have its primary back in February?

A: Yes, but it was only for presidential candidates. The primary for all other elected offices is June 3. New Jersey moved its presidential primary to Feb. 5 this year to try to give the state more say in choosing presidential candidates.

I guess it should have struck me as odd that, when I voted in the Feb. 5 primary, the only office on the ballot was U.S. president.

Since the mission of this blog is to help you survive the Garden State rather than fight it, I'll reserve my thoughts on whether having two different primary elections, which generally have low turnout to begin with, is a good thing for democracy.

I can, however, provide here the links to both the Republican and Democratic state party websites in case you would like to pass your thoughts along to those who made this decision.

• New Jersey Republican State Committee
• New Jersey Democratic State Committee

I also welcome your comments. Comments on this blog are moderated to avoid spam. I'll post any comments that are relevant to the topic within 24 hours.