Another Day, Another Tax
Posted August 8, 2008

From property taxes to tolls, gas taxes to water taxes, the public utility tax to the sales tax it sometimes seems every tax possible is either currently a reality or has at one time been a proposal here in New Jersey. Well, now there is another tax to add to the list: the state police tax. Yes, the Garden State now wants to levy a tax to pay for police services.

A new bill (A2982/S1976) introduced in the legislature in June would add a $40 dollar “surcharge” (i.e. tax) to motor vehicle violations “to provide property tax relief to municipalities for local police services.” (Perhaps New Jersey is the only state that tries to pass off a new tax as tax relief!). The measure, sponsored in the Senate by Senator Jeff Van Drew (D-Cape May/Atlantic/Cumberland) and in the Assembly by Assemblymen Matthew Milam and Nelson Albano (both D-Cape May/Atlantic/Cumberland), purportedly seeks “to defray some of the costs in providing local police services” by, you guessed it, taxing tickets.

According to the bill statement, the surcharge – which is expected to bring in more than $160 million each year if motor vehicle violations continue to occur in the same numbers as recent years – would be evenly divided between two funds: the Police Services Property Tax Relief Fund and the Rural Police Services Property Tax Relief Fund. The money in the first fund would go towards towns with full-time police departments while the money in the second fund would go towards the smaller towns across the state that pay for State Police services.

The legislation has drawn particular attention lately because, as the Star Ledger reports, the 89 towns across the state that fall into this second category – that of paying for State Police services – recently received state bills amounting to $12.6 million. And, as the Vineland Daily Journal notes, this $12.6 million covers only a fraction of the $80 million it takes for the state to provide rural police services.

According to State Treasurer David Rousseau, towns have until December 15 to decide whether they want to continue sharing costs with the state or find a way to pay for their own police protection. Already, several towns are fighting back, and 12 have filed complaints with the Council on Local Mandates. The Council, as the Star Ledger explains, is an “obscure, eight-member” council, created by a 1995 amendment to the state constitution and vested with “the power to issue decisions that cannot be second-guessed by state courts.”  Hence, “[i]f it decides the costs are unfair, it can forbid them.”
While the verdict remains out on the fairness of the fees, many rural towns are left strapped by hefty state bills.

Which brings us back to the proposed motor vehicle violations tax. While we in no way condone any reckless or illegal driving behavior, we contend that the ticket tax is yet further evidence of Trenton’s taxation addiction. Trenton is trying to solve one problem by creating yet another.

The existing problem is the burden on towns to pay for state police services – a burden that towns often bear by raising property taxes. (As one example, according to the Atlantic City Press, property taxes in Atlantic County’s Buena Vista Township are poised to spike by an average of $100 per household to cover the townships $303,251 state police services bill.)

The new problem is the imposition of another tax on a taxpayer base that is already taxed to the hilt – and beyond. Furthermore, as 2007 State Assembly Candidate Michael J. Donahue recently wrote, the tax proposal “makes the state and local communities forever financially dependent on the imposition of surcharges on traffic tickets. If the fund is running short, will the legislature direct state and local police to write more tickets?”

Unfortunately, Trenton’s “solution” always seems to be more or higher taxes. And our legislature remains unwilling to face and embrace the one true solution: closing the taxpayer-funded checkbook and cutting wasteful spending. Until they do this, no product or service is safe from taxation – and no taxpayer wallet is safe from Trenton’s grasp. To quote an old adage, “When government attempts to solve one problem, it invariably creates three more.”

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