Dear Editor:
The Real Reasons Our Taxes Are So High (Reporter, June 2), is because “like a rich businessman who hits a new tax bracket when his or her salary jumps, Hoboken is a victim of its own success,” explains Don Kenny, Hudson County Tax Administrator.
No, Hoboken is a victim of the property revaluation in 2013, thanks to Mayor Zimmer. Only one other town in Hudson County (Guttenberg) had such a “revaluation”. Mayor Fulop of Jersey City sensibly decided not to do it.
The comparison to a “rich businessman” whose salary jumps is a false one. Hoboken property owners whose taxes have doubled thanks to the revaluation have not had a jump in income. Their incomes have been cut in half by bureaucrats insatiable for tax revenue. Their property may be “worth” more, but what good does that do them, unless they decide to sell. Sell? What person in her right mind would live anywhere but in Hoboken?
Here’s my advice to a homeowner on a fixed income, Social Security, etc., who has not had a “salary jump” but a life-threatening plummet: You may not have to resort to eating cat or dog food, as some seniors have done in the past while being taxed out of house and home. There’s a better, free source of food. Every spring the maple trees shed millions of helicopter seeds (samaras), that come dervishing down, and they’re lying now in heaps in our backyards. The seed, absent the wing, is edible, and tasty. They can be eaten raw, or boiled, or roasted, or dried and ground into flour.
Bon appetit, seniors! And when you are eating your samaras, be sure and contact the mayor, thanking her for introducing you to this nutritious new food.
T. Weed