New Jersey senators have advanced a plan to exempt ag land from rollback property taxes if a hardship prevents the land from being farmed.
The bill from Sen. John Burzichelli, D-Gloucester, passed the Community and Urban Affairs Committee on Jan. 30.
The bill expounds a principle established in a Tax Court case that rollback taxes should not be triggered unless farmland goes into a more intensive use than ag production, said Laura Tharney, the executive director of the New Jersey Law Revision Commission, a body that serves the Legislature.
“The court found it difficult to imagine that the intent of any rollback provision was to impose an extra tax burden on a landowner who simply grew old or became disabled and no longer could actively devote the property to agriculture,” Tharney said.
This principle aligns with guidance in New Jersey’s handbook for tax assessors, which says that in some cases, the loss of farmland assessment, which generally provides a reduced tax rate, does not automatically trigger rollback taxes.
A 2019 Tax Court case from Holmdel Township cast the no-rollback provision in doubt.
Landowner Carole Balmer became sick around the time her farmer retired, and she couldn’t replace him.
She stopped seeking farmland assessment in 2014, but the township won a lawsuit to make her pay rollback taxes, Tharney said.
New Jersey Farm Bureau, the New Jersey State Bar Association, and New Jersey Business & Industry Association support Burzichelli’s bill.
The Assembly companion bill passed committee in December.
