The Princeton Council has extended the May 1 deadline to pay property taxes to June 1, under a resolution approved by the council at a special meeting May 1.
The Princeton Council is taking advantage of an executive order issued April 28 by Gov. Phil Murphy to extend the due date for the quarterly property tax payments. Property taxes are due Feb. 1, May 1, Aug. 1 and Nov. 1 every year.
Princeton allows a 10-day grace period for the payment of property taxes, without incurring interest charges. If the property tax bill is paid by the 10th day, there is no interest charge. But if it is paid after the 10th day, interest is charged back to the due date.
In this case, Mayor Liz Lempert said, interest on the property tax bill would be charged back to May 1 if it is not paid by June 1. The average property tax bill in Princeton was $19,873 in 2019.
Lempert said many property owners have been “hit hard financially” by the COVID-19 pandemic, and that is the reason for extending the May 1 deadline to pay property taxes.
Nevertheless, Lempert urged property owners to make their quarterly property tax payments sooner rather than later.
“I know one thing the executive order is not going to do,” Lempert said. It is not going to extend the deadline for the town to turn over the amount of property taxes due to the Princeton Public Schools and Mercer County, she said.
The municipality serves as the tax collector for property taxes levied by the school district and the county government to help support their respective budgets. The municipality is obligated to pay out what is owed to the school district and the county government first, and then it “pays” itself.
Since municipalities rarely collect 100% of property taxes, the municipal budget has a line item – the reserve for uncollected taxes – built into it to ensure that the school district and the county government receive all of the property taxes that are due to them.
Lempert said the town keeps about 20 percent of the quarterly property tax that is billed to a property owner. The rest is allocated to the school district and the county government.
Sandra Webb, the town’s chief financial officer, reminded the Princeton Council that it still has to meet the deadline to pay Mercer County and the Princeton Public Schools the money that is due. Those payments must be paid on time, whether a property owner makes payment on May 1 or June 1, she said.
“The request that I am making is if [a property owner] is not in financial duress, we are asking them to pay the property taxes during the time period that they are due,” Lempert said. Property taxes should be paid by May 10.
State law allows towns to extend the deadline to include a 10-day grace period to pay property taxes without owners’ incurring interest. After Superstorm Sandy, the law was changed to allow towns to extend the due date for up to one month if they had experienced a flood or natural disaster – but not for a public health emergency.
For that reason, Murphy issued an executive order to allow municipalities to extend the May 1 due date by one month. The municipal governing body must adopt a resolution to extend the due date, which is what occurred at the Princeton Council’s May 1 meeting.
Murphy said that allowing municipalities the option to extend the due date without incurring penalties or interest charges for the May 1 payment is “the right thing to do as many New Jerseyans are impacted financially as a result of this crisis.”
