N.J.’s $500 tax rebate is only for people with kids, and some say that’s unfair – NJ.com

Gov. Phil Murphy last week secured his long-desired tax hike on people who earn more than $1 million in New Jersey. The deal with top state lawmakers comes with a $500 tax rebate for for low- and middle-income families in the state — and plenty of fine print.

Notably excluded from the rebate are the childless and older residents whose children are already grown.

James Aumack, 75, has paid his fair share of taxes to New Jersey, he said. The exclusion of seniors like him, now a grandfather, felt like “a slap in the face.”

“The people who have paid an entire lifetime of taxes, we get zip,” Aumack, a former Jersey City teacher who retired to Cape May, said. “Because my kids are out of the house, and we’re in our 70s now, it’s ‘you’re old. The hell with you’.”

Details on the rebate, announced Thursday, are pretty hard to come by. Officials said many of the specifics will depend on legislation that hasn’t been introduced, such as whether non-residents qualify and if the check can be garnished for back taxes or child support.

But as described last week, 800,000 New Jersey families will receive a check of up to $500 sometime next summer. Eligibility is limited to married couples with at least one dependent child and gross income below $150,000 and individuals with at least one dependent child and less than $75,000 in gross income.

Murphy said that as part of the deal, the definition of a dependent child under the state’s tax code will be revised to mirror the federal definition: a child under 19 years old or a full-time student under 24.

“This is money our families need and money that will help spur our recovery and our future resiliency,” Murphy said Thursday, saying many middle-class and working families were put out of work by the state’s efforts to slow the spread of the coronavirus.

Nearly 1.6 million New Jersey workers have filed unemployment claims since the start of the pandemic in mid-March.

State Sen. Steven Oroho, R-Sussex, said if what the state’s Democratic leaders are looking for is an economic recovery, cutting out seniors is a mistake.

“They like to have disposable income and spend it. They like to go out and frequent our small business, main street shops. That’s blood running through the veins,” said Oroho, who pushed in 2016 to quadruple the gross income tax exclusion for pension and retirement income. “That’s where you get the multiplier effect of things.”

Asked why childless families were excluded from the tax break, a spokesman for state Assembly Speaker Craig Coughlin, who forged the deal, said: “We believe two parent families and especially single parent families are most in need of assistance as they provide food, clothing and shelter for their children.”

There’s plenty of help for all demographics in the governor’s proposed budget, spokesman Kevin McArdle said, mentioning the Earned Income Tax Credit, the Child and Dependent Care Tax Credit. There’s also nearly $500 million for the Homestead and Senior Freeze property tax credits, he noted.

Murphy similarly called the tax rebate “one piece” of his “stronger and fairer” agenda.

“We have an enormous amount of investments into the folks who are living below the poverty line, who are up against it, whether it’s the environmental justice bill today, whether it’s the notion of baby bonds, whether it’s that health care premium that we have now taken the disproportionate amount to direct to filks who could not prior to this afford or access health care,” Murphy said Friday during his latest coronavirus briefing in Trenton.

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Samantha Marcus may be reached at smarcus@njadvancemedia.com.

Brent Johnson may be reached at bjohnson@njadvancemedia.com.