I received my new tax postcard in the mail yesterday so I figured I’d share a breakdown of how to read it. This is very similar to the former tax post card, with some notable exceptions:
- You can now see your NEW tax assessed value. This is the value assigned to your property by Appraisal Systems (the 3rd party firm conducting the Reval). The value you see on your tax postcard means this is the value now officially on file with the tax office of Jersey City.
- The appeal deadline is June 18, 2018. If you do not appeal by this date, your assessment will remain as-is until next year.
- Finally, worth noting (because I’ve already been asked this): This tax postcard is NOT the same document as the letter you received from Appraisal Systems.
- The letter from Appraisal Systems Inc (ASI) was a “notification of value” from ASI about what they thought your property was worth.
- This tax postcard reflects the final value that is now on record with the city tax office. The only way to change this value is to file an appeal with the Hudson County Tax Board.
Finally – I imagine a common question will be: “What are my new taxes going to be?” You can figure this out by multiplying your NEW tax assessed value times the estimated NEW tax rate. A few caveats on the NEW rate:
- In December 2017 the city released this update from Appraisal Systems which pegged the new, estimated rate at 1.6%. So this is currently the best guess estimate of the new rate.
- BUT…1.6% is a true estimate, and the new rate will be impacted by a few factors, namely (a) the new city budget, and more specifically the new city tax levy within the budget, (b) the final value of the tax base. We won’t have the final rate for 2018/19 until the July 2018 timeframe when the City Council passes the fiscal year budget.
I’ve created an infographic to help break it down but if anyone has questions feel free to send them to me at Brigid@civicparent.org.
