Methodist Church Gets NJ Property Tax Assessment Invalidated

A New Jersey borough shouldn’t have used a “backdoor” method for assessing church property after it believed the building was no longer being used for exempt purposes, the state tax court ruled.

“The proper course would have been for the taxing district to appeal its assessor’s grant of tax exemption. It did not,” New Jersey Tax Court Judge Mala Sundar wrote in an unpublished opinion released Wednesday. “It now cannot through a backdoor resort to the general omitted assessment law.”

An omitted assessment adds property to the tax rolls if a midyear change in status means it’s no longer exempt. ...