Princeton Council Candidate Talks Senior Tax Freeze Program

PRINCETON, NJ — Many seniors Michelle Pirone Lambros has spoken to in her campaign for Princeton Council have expressed a concern about property tax increases. She wants to let them know there is hope in the form of The Senior Tax Freeze, a State program that provides an annual rebate for seniors on property taxes, and correlates their base payment to when they became eligible for the program.

She provided the details about the program Monday morning. Qualifying for the program is based on several factors:

• Age 65 or older
• Home ownership for three years, and 10 continuous years of living in New Jersey
• Annual household income that does not exceed $87,268, including Social Security payments, for 2017.

Upon qualifying, a base tax year is determined, which is the first year of application. However, seniors who would have qualified earlier than the year they initially apply can apply retroactively to set their base at a lower rate. Seniors can have their tax base set as far back as 1997, the first year the rebate program started, or whenever they became eligible after that year.

The way it works is that seniors must pay their current year tax bill in full, then the difference of the current year tax and the base tax is refunded. Each subsequent year, seniors continue to pay their full tax bill, and will receive the difference back as a refund each year, based on their original base tax. They must submit the 3 page application annually to get the rebate, but once the base tax is set, it stays constant.

According to a Princeton Senior Resource Center study from June 2016, an estimated 1,144 households, or 45.8 percent of all senior households in Princeton, would fall within the income limits of the Senior Freeze program.

“Almost universally, the seniors I have spoken with are not familiar with this program, much less benefitting from it, even though many of our seniors would be able to qualify,” Pirone Lambros said.

Additional information can be found through the New Jersey Department of Taxation, Senior Tax Freeze Hotline at 800-882-6597, as well as the Princeton Senior Resource Center at 609-924-7108.

Information about the Senior Tax Freeze program is available on Michelle Pirone Lambros’ website at www.pironeforcouncil.com.

Pirone Lambros is one of six Democrats running for two open, three-year seats on Princeton Council this year. Adam Bierman, Alvin McGowen, Eve Niedergang, Dwaine Williamson and Surinder Paul Sharma are all running for the seats currently occupied by Councilwoman Heather Howard and Councilman Lance Liverman. Howard and Liverman are not running for re-election.

Lishian "Lisa" Wu is the only Republican running for council this year. Wu is the first Republican in three years to run for a council seat. June 5 is also the deadline to file a petition to run as an independent candidate in the Nov. 6 general elections.

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