To the editor:
Did you see the recent letters to the editor by Hopewell Township Committee candidate Julie Blake and her cronies claiming that a tax break that generates less taxes from developers called a PILOT (payment in lieu of taxes) will “not burden existing taxpayers” (Blake) or will be “keeping our taxes low” (Bouchez) or will “keep our taxes from going up” (Cook)?
It sounds unbelievable that a tax break, which significantly reduces the tax burden on developers, will have no impact other tax-payers. And like things that sound too good to be true, those cynical election-day claims are, in fact, not true.
Unlike these unsupported pie-in-sky-claims, let us reason together with common knowledge to understand just how badly the public is being deceived.
Everybody knows that municipally-collected tax dollars are divided proportionally among five taxing entities. Just look at your tax bill pie chart to see the percentages: School-57; County-26; Township-13; Fire District-3; Open Space-1.
Everybody also knows that 95 percent of the PILOT payment goes to the township and five percent goes to the county.
Finally, everybody knows that a PILOT is a tax break: in the first 10 years, the payment is 66 percent of full taxes; in years 11-20, the payment is 75 percent of full taxes; in years 21-30, the payment is 99 percent of full taxes.
In one sense, redirecting tax-entitled revenue away from the schools, county, fire district and open space to the township steals their entitled revenue. Yet, it is even worse when the township steals from a tax-collector with the power to tax for lost revenue.
The schools, the county and the fire district will not be denied revenue to which they are entitled. They will simply raise taxes higher on the rest of us to replace the revenue that the township deprived from them. Existing taxpayers will be not only burdened, but over-burdened because the PILOT does not keep taxes low or from going up. The PILOT causes the schools, the county and the fire district to raise taxes higher than they would have without a PILOT.
Harvey Lester
Titusville