Credit: (AP Photo/Mel Evans)New Jersey seniors are about to see big changes in how they can apply for state-funded property-tax relief benefits, according to the state Department of the Treasury.
Within the next few weeks, seniors 65 and older, as well as disabled homeowners, will be able to apply online for three separate property-tax relief programs using a new, combined application form.
And by early March, paper copies of the combined application — which has been dubbed PAS-1 by Treasury’s Division of Taxation — will be mailed to more than 1 million households, Treasury officials announced Wednesday.
Meanwhile, copies of the new application and the instructions for it can be downloaded from the Division of Taxation.
The application deadline for those using the new PAS-1 form is Oct. 31, Treasury officials said.
The debut of the combined application means seniors and disabled homeowners can for the first time in New Jersey seek benefits provided through the Anchor and Senior Freeze programs, as well as a promised new program called Stay NJ, without having to fill out separate applications for each program.
A note of caution
The combined application is only for seniors and disabled homeowners. This summer, many other homeowners and renters, who are eligible for Anchor benefits, will receive letters confirming their automatic eligibility for the latest round of Anchor benefits, and applications for Anchor benefits will also be distributed to other eligible residents via the mail, Treasury officials said.
New Jersey seniors have long complained about an onerous benefits applications process, and the establishment of a combined form was mandated in a law enacted by Gov. Phil Murphy in November.
Murphy and lawmakers have been socking away hundreds of millions of dollars annually over the last few years to help pay for the initial rollout of the Stay NJ program.
Still, while the overhaul of the application process for seniors is rolling out, Treasury’s news release cautioned that the availability of funding for the next round of various property-tax relief benefits remains “subject to State Budget appropriations.”
On Feb. 25, Murphy, a second-term Democrat, is scheduled to present his plan for the state’s next annual budget to a joint session of the Legislature. The next budget must be in place for the July 1 start of the 2026 fiscal year or state government is required to shut down.
On Wednesday, state Treasurer Elizabeth Maher Muoio provided an overview of the current pace of revenue collections for the 2025 fiscal year, which ends June 30, during a public meeting of the New Jersey State Investment Council, a panel that sets policy for most of the state’s public-worker pension funds.
NJ’s revenue outlook
While overall tax collections were running slightly ahead of last year’s pace through the end of December, Muoio also told council members the state anticipates a “tight budget year” in fiscal year 2026.
“The governor has directed all departments to propose reductions in their budget submissions,” Muoio said.
New Jersey is facing a sizable structural budget deficit that, if left unaddressed, ‘will wipe away the surplus that we have worked so hard to amass,’ Gov. Phil Murphy said.
However, the treasurer said Murphy remains committed to full funding of the state’s actuarially determined annual pension contribution. And if lawmakers go along, fiscal year 2026 would be the fifth year in a row that the state will have made its full employer pension payment after more than two decades of underfunding the pension obligations.
With the average property-tax bill running at an all-time high statewide, according to the latest data collected by the state Department of Community Affairs, more than $3 billion was set aside to fund direct property-tax relief programs like Anchor and Senior Freeze in the state’s current annual budget.
The property-tax relief appropriations helped fund the latest round of Anchor benefits, which were distributed to nearly 2 million eligible homeowners and renters, as well as the latest round of benefits distributed to thousands of senior and disabled homeowners through the long-standing Senior Freeze program.
Meanwhile, funding was also earmarked for the introduction of the promised Stay NJ program, which aims to further bolster property-tax relief benefits for many senior homeowners, starting around this time next year.
Stay NJ’s potential bounty
Under the current plans, Stay NJ would provide additional relief benefits to senior homeowners to ensure their annual property-tax bills are effectively cut in half if the combined benefits provided through Anchor and Senior Freeze do not already accomplish that goal.
Murphy and lawmakers have been socking away hundreds of millions of dollars annually over the last few years to help pay for the initial rollout of the Stay NJ program, which would be provided to eligible homeowners in early 2026, subject to appropriation by the governor and lawmakers.
Stay NJ promises to provide senior homeowners making as much as $500,000 annually with benefits totaling as much as $6,500 once fully implemented, making it more generous than any of the state’s other property-tax relief offerings.
However, senior renters would be locked out of the Stay NJ program altogether, something progressive activists have widely criticized as favoring wealthy homeowners at the expense of lower-income tenants.
Murphy, in a statement when he signed the law creating the streamlined application in November, said he was “hopeful that the State budget will be able to support the implementation of Stay NJ” without undermining fiscal progress that has been made during his tenure in several key areas, including pension and public education funding and the building up of state budget reserves.
In the same statement, Murphy, who is term-limited and due to leave office early next year, also said New Jersey is facing a sizable structural budget deficit that, if left unaddressed, “will wipe away the surplus that we have worked so hard to amass.”
