Livingston Chamber Criticizes Proposed NJ Business Tax Hike

LIVINGSTON, NJ — The Livingston Chamber of Commerce has added its voice to a fiery debate over a proposed tax hike for high-earning businesses in New Jersey.

During his 2024 budget address, Gov. Phil Murphy announced that state officials are proposing the creation of a “new” 2.5 percent tax on businesses that earn more than $10 million per year. It would create a dedicated funding source for the cash-strapped NJ Transit, which is rolling out a 15 percent fare hike for commuters to cover a sprawling shortfall.

Advocates have been cheering for the proposed tax hike, saying that it will only impact the wealthiest corporations – including many that don’t have headquarters located in the state, such as Amazon, Walmart and Bank of America.

• Read More: ‘Pay Your Fair Share’: Activists Rally For Higher NJ Corporate Tax
• Read More: Corporate Taxes And Public Transportation: Debate Rages In New Jersey

However, the plan also has its critics, who argue that it’s a bad deal not just for businesses, but also for the workers they employ. Some have called it a “rebranded” corporate surtax, referring to an extra charge on New Jersey businesses that recently expired.

New Jersey has a 9 percent tax on corporations – one of the highest in the nation – with companies earning less than $1 million taxed on a sliding scale. The state previously charged an extra 2.5 percent “surtax” for companies that top $1 million in earnings.

The Livingston Chamber of Commerce – which aims to advance the “commercial, professional, industrial and civic interests” of the township – recently joined more than 40 local and regional chambers of commerce across the state to oppose the proposed tax hike in a letter to state lawmakers (read it here).

“Due to the Corporate Transit Fee, our largest employers, who are also our biggest nonprofit philanthropists, are being saddled with a completely unwarranted tax increase – the dollar amount of which is more punitive to those affected than the recently expired CBT surcharge,” the May 1 letter reads.

“It is simply a more egregious and expensive extension of the surcharge,” the chambers insisted, echoing complaints from other pro-business groups.

The chambers of commerce recommended that state legislators “reinvest” a $6 billion dollar surplus before they create new taxes.

“The $1 billion can easily be found in a $56 billion budget through a surgical approach looking at all budget categories,” the chambers wrote, referring to the looming financial gap at NJ Transit.

“An additional tax on corporate revenue is not a stable source of funding,” the chambers opined.

Another Essex County organization, the Roseland-based New Jersey Society of Certified Public Accountants, recently carried out a poll among its 13,000 members, which showed strong opposition to Murphy’s proposal.

More than 70 percent of survey respondents said the tax would prompt businesses to leave New Jersey, the group reported.

Despite the worries of some experts in the New Jersey business community, several social justice groups, progressive think tanks and transportation experts continue to support the latest tax proposal.

“The governor’s budget proposal rightly asks the world’s biggest corporations to pay for the infrastructure that helps generate their record-breaking profits,” Nicole Rodriguez, president of nonprofit think tank New Jersey Policy Perspective, previously said.

“In this current era of rising inequality, if corporations are going to swallow a lion’s share of economic growth, they shouldn’t expect to pay less in taxes and have working families make up the difference,” Rodriguez insisted.

The “For The Many NJ Coalition” also backed the latest proposal to tax wealthy corporations in a recent statement, pointing to other looming cost increases for commuters in New Jersey:

“If the state is going to tax low wage workers through fare, toll, and gas tax increases, we cannot let big multinational corporations and wealthy individuals get a tax cut at the same time. Wealthy corporations can afford the corporate surcharge; it would generate more than $1 billion in revenue, and businesses have already been paying it for years – their profits increased dramatically even when they paid the corporate surcharge.”

A recent Fairleigh Dickinson poll found that 54 percent of New Jersey residents would support restoring a corporate tax surcharge and dedicating the revenues to NJ Transit. About 29 percent of respondents said they would not support it.

• See Related: Controversial New Tax On Rich Corporations Proposed In New Jersey
• See Related: Debate On Corporate Tax Reignites As NJ Transit Hikes Bus, Train Fares

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