If You Want a Tax Exemption, Don't Discriminate

Tax breaks are not a right, they are a privilege. There are generally rules that need to be followed by thoese companies or organizations that receive them. The township of Ocean Grove has decided to enforce their rules and take away a tax abatement away from an organization that clearly voilated the terms of the program.

The Ocean Grove Camp Meeting Association will have to pay about $20,000 in rollback property taxes for the boardwalk pavilion, the township tax assessor has determined.

Assessor Bernard Haney said Friday that he calculated the pavilion's taxes to be about $6,500 a year for 2005, 2006 and 2007.

Rollback taxes are usually paid when a property comes off the state's tax abatement rolls. The rollback taxes are usually for a period of three previous tax years.

The pavilion had been part of the association's boardwalk and beachfront property that was part of a state Green Acres tax abatement program. The association has not paid property taxes on the property since the program was established.

But controversy last year over the association's refusal to allow two lesbian couples to have their civil union ceremonies in the pavilion led the state Department of Environmental Protection, which oversees the Green Acres program, to re-evaluate the association's application this year.

DEP commissioner Lisa Jackson decided that because the pavilion was apparently not open to all on an equal basis — a requirement of the tax abatement program — she would not allow the pavilion to be included.

Good. Tax-supported discrimination should not be allowed to happen without consequences.

Click here to read more of the story in the Asbury Park Press. Thanks to PageOneQ for the link.