‘Residents Paying Lions Share of Property Taxes’

To The Editor:
Truth be told, the taxpayers who own a residential property in Wildwood are paying the “lion’s share” of our city’s tax levy. The “Taxes Assessed for the Year 2009” that was certified by the Cape May County Board of Taxation totaled $1,838,006,789. Residential units totaling 4,236 properties were valued at $1,116,327,400 and commercial units totaling 568 properties were valued at $463,681,800. That means that residential taxpayers are paying a total of 240.75 percent more than business owners.
Recently, I attended the Commissioners’ Meeting at City Hall that consisted of a large crowd of business owners, and heard our mayor and com-missioners state that businesses pay the “lion’s share” of property taxes in our town (about 70 pecent), I knew this was not so. My question is, what or who made them believe such an erroneous thought?
Mayor Gary DeMarzo has been our commissioner of Finance & Revenue since 2007, he should know our financial standing in this regard. The mayor also stated that possibly business owners’ property taxes could be reduced or tax abatements given to help their businesses financially. You can’t decrease the tax burden on businesses by increasing the burden on residential homeowners. There has to be a fair and equitable solution. Many business owners already have reduced tax bills far below what residential owners are paying.
For example, two residential units on one 60 by 90-foot lot (total assessment $1,323,500) pays about $24,000 annually in property taxes while a commercial unit in the boardwalk/amusement district with six acres (total assessment $1,346,600) of prime beachfront land pays $25,706.59 in property taxes. Is this fair? Before this business owner made a tax appeal and met with our commissioner of Finance and our Tax Assessor the property was assessed at $8,114,900 (source City of Wildwood, Joe Gallagher, tax assessor, Jan. 23, 2008). And to add insult to injury it was sold to the current owners on March 30, 2000 for $4,870,000 (source Cape May County website).
So at the very least they should be paying taxes on that sales price. We must have a fair and equitable form of taxation. Many other businesses with low assessments, when selling, garner a substantial amount more than their assessment while residential owners are selling far below their current assessment. I stated this fact to DeMarzo many times and even faxed him documentation showing him the inconsistencies—its time to get something done about it.
SANDRA RICHARDSON
Wildwood