We in New Jersey are being taxed to death literally! You pay various taxes when you are alive and when you die your estate pays death taxes, isn’t that wonderful? Governor Christie had hinted that if the Estate (Inheritance) tax were eliminated that he would support the raising of the Gas tax.
You might not know this but New Jersey is only one of a few states that still have an Estate tax. This destructive tax should have been legislated out of existence years ago, but our greedy legislature will not kill it. They claim that there is not enough money coming in as it is. My answer to that is don’t you see that people are moving out of New Jersey as soon as they retire? They want to avoid both the retirement taxes and death taxes!
Now some in the legislature are proposing that both the Estate tax and the Inheritance tax be cut in exchange for an increase in the Gas Tax. That just shows that they have no back bone to reduce the tax burden on the people of New Jersey. Someday that back bone is going to break and the state of New Jersey will run out of money. Not because of the fact that people are not making money, just for the fact that there is not enough money to feed the cash cow that our legislature has created.
To make things even worse is the fact that the Gas Tax fund is not a truly dedicated fund and is put into the General Fund. That means that the hue and cry of our roads and related infrastructure falling apart because of not enough revenue is a falsehood. For the proposal to trade off one tax against raising another shows that the money that is greatly needed to fix our roadways will not go to doing just that, but can be siphoned off to pay other bills. So what good is it to have this Peter to pay Paul way of thinking? It will just result in further deterioration of our roadways and the contribute to the continuing failure to face the reality of over taxation
On the other hand there are groups that think we should keep the death taxes and raise the Gas Tax so that revenues do not fall off. These groups do not seem to realize that our ship of state is sinking; we have hit the great over-taxation reef and can not seem to stop the surging wave of payments to public worker pension funds. What stupidity can justify their thinking you might be wondering; the answer is simple they are the ones benefiting from those monies.
It is time for the New Jersey taxpayer to make the decision to either force the legislature to fix our horrendous money problems by lowering taxes and reigning in spending; or just pack up and leave this great state! Now is my winter of discontent and will the spring be any better? If we continue on this downward spiral the state of New Jersey will go broke! So make up your mind stay and fight or take flight!!
That is my opinion- Jumpin Jersey Mike
