I didn't want to bury this in the Stock/Investment Thread so figured I would give the heads-up here. My friend who does volunteer Fed and NJ Income taxes for a county group told me about these yet to be announced changes coming. The big change is that for this year's 2025 Anchor program they are moving up the "Income Basis Year" from what should have been 2022 to 2024! Skipping both the 2022 and 2023 years.
As you may know the 2024 Anchor program was qualified using your 2021 NJ Taxable income.
The potential screw here is for the folks who would have qualified for the Rental/Ownership payouts based on their 2022 income but for some reason wouldn't because of 2024. (this state makes it so hard to manage to qualify when they are always changing the rules AFTER the fact). Not sure if moving up the base years also includes changing what your residency was in that year (renter vs. owner). Meaning you would have gotten the $400 for being a renter in 2022 but now could get the $1,500 because you were an Owner in 2024 or vice versa! (yikes)
The training he got also said that there were going to be changes to the income that is used to qualify for these programs. Things that are currently excluded for some will now be in the mix. (sorry, had to go there).
And also very surprising (because nothing has really been announced) there is supposed to be a website opening in just a couple weeks where residents will enter all of their income data for several years. This site will then calculate exactly what each person is supposed to get from each program including timing (perhaps automated for past filers?). This is NJ so don't be shocked if this doesn't quite happen yet especially how after the fact things get done.
This is all part of a harmonization process that was discussed going to happen across Freeze, Anchor, and Stay NJ. I'm going to see if I can get my hands on the Presentation Deck which he said includes all the NJ statutes that make this all possible.
Hoping this info is of some value to you and thought some may be interested.
As you may know the 2024 Anchor program was qualified using your 2021 NJ Taxable income.
The potential screw here is for the folks who would have qualified for the Rental/Ownership payouts based on their 2022 income but for some reason wouldn't because of 2024. (this state makes it so hard to manage to qualify when they are always changing the rules AFTER the fact). Not sure if moving up the base years also includes changing what your residency was in that year (renter vs. owner). Meaning you would have gotten the $400 for being a renter in 2022 but now could get the $1,500 because you were an Owner in 2024 or vice versa! (yikes)
The training he got also said that there were going to be changes to the income that is used to qualify for these programs. Things that are currently excluded for some will now be in the mix. (sorry, had to go there).
And also very surprising (because nothing has really been announced) there is supposed to be a website opening in just a couple weeks where residents will enter all of their income data for several years. This site will then calculate exactly what each person is supposed to get from each program including timing (perhaps automated for past filers?). This is NJ so don't be shocked if this doesn't quite happen yet especially how after the fact things get done.
This is all part of a harmonization process that was discussed going to happen across Freeze, Anchor, and Stay NJ. I'm going to see if I can get my hands on the Presentation Deck which he said includes all the NJ statutes that make this all possible.
Hoping this info is of some value to you and thought some may be interested.
