Livingston Property Revaluation: How Will It Affect Your Taxes?

LIVINGSTON, NJ — As the dust settles from Livingston’s town-wide property revaluation, officials are offering a way for local homeowners to calculate the estimated impact to their taxes.

Earlier this week, Livingston town officials released links to an online “tax impact worksheet” as part of their outreach efforts regarding the revaluation.

Livingston property owners can access the worksheet two ways:

• Download a .pdf file
• Download an interactive Excel file

More information about the revaluation process is available on the ASI Project Status Page.

The township is one of several in the county that was recently ordered to conduct a property revaluation by the Essex County Board of Taxation. Other Essex County towns that have conducted revaluations in the past few years include Caldwell, Belleville, Millburn and Verona.

According to the New Jersey Treasury Department, a property revaluation is a program undertaken by a municipality to appraise all real property within the taxing district according to its "full and fair value."

"A revaluation program seeks to spread the tax burden equitably within a municipality," the NJ Treasury Department states. "Real property must be assessed at the same standard of value to ensure that every property owner is paying his or her fair share of the property tax. For example, two properties having essentially the same market value should be paying essentially the same amount in property taxes."

Although almost all properties' values rise during a revaluation, it doesn't necessarily mean that all property taxes will increase, state officials say.

"You might now be thinking, 'How can my assessment increase and my taxes not go up?'" state officials explain. "Remember, assessments are merely a base used to apportion the tax burden. The tax burden is the amount that your municipality must raise for the operation of county and local government and support of the school system."

During a revaluation, assessors visit individual homes and conduct both inside and outside inspections. Property owners who disagree with the eventual assessed value of their homes can arrange an informal hearing or file an appeal with the County Board of Taxation.

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