Tom Allibone, West Amwell
Switching phone companies to save a buck could raise your real estate taxes if Verizon stops paying the business personal property tax on its poles and wires deployed within your town. It’s hard to believe but true. If Verizon loses 51 percent of the phone line in your town, they get a free ride thanks to competition.
Deregulation of the telecommunications industry has backfired in New Jersey. Verizon had promised to deploy its fiber optic network throughout the state by the end of 2010. That commitment was made back in 1993 under “Opportunity New Jersey.” The carrier promised 45-megabit broadband. Instead we got ADSL. It was nothing more than a bait and switch.
Then it argued that it needed a statewide video franchise. Verizon actually advocated raising the franchise fees paid by subscribers and thus increase tax revenues to each town. Now, the carrier wants to reduce these fees. Just another bait and switch.
Under deregulation, Verizon has been raising its landline service rates every year and yet it claims to be losing a half-million phone lines each year.
Meanwhile, its special access lines have gone through the roof. In 2000, there were approximately two million lines. As of December 2007, special access lines exceeded 24 million.
In a competitive market, you don’t raise your rates when you are supposedly losing business. As usual, the actions of the carrier are at odds with what it is saying about the competition. Now it argues that the playing field is uneven because it has to pay business personal property taxes on its infrastructure and the competition does not pay these taxes.
Since 1999, the personal property taxes have dropped from approximately $100 million to around $30 million. This revenue loss to New Jersey municipalities is devastating to our communities and all taxpayers. As incredible as this sounds, if you switch from Verizon to another service provider, you could actually cause your real estate taxes to go up. Just ask the 29 municipalities that lost their business personal property tax revenue when Verizon unilaterally decided to stop paying the tax with no justification or explanation.

