21 Aug Will there be an ANCHOR payment for 2024?

Q. Will there be an ANCHOR payment for both renters and homeowners for 2024?
— Hopeful

A. The timing of the ANCHOR benefit is confusing.

The benefits that will start paying out this fall are actually for the 2021 tax year.

They will, indeed, include both renters and homeowners.

In terms of the timing, though, the benefit years are behind the actual current tax year because of changes that were made under Gov. Chris Christie to the Homestead Rebate, which was the precursor to ANCHOR.

The Homestead Rebate was born when the state instituted its first income tax in the mid 1970s.

Gov. Chris Christie delayed the benefit twice for budgetary reasons, and the delays stayed.

So the ANCHOR benefit, which has replaced the Homestead Rebate, stuck to that later schedule.

But will there be an ANCHOR benefit for tax year 2024 down the road? That’s a great question, and a lot will depend on how lawmakers proceed with Stay NJ, which in conjunction with ANCHOR and Senior Freeze, is designed to cut property taxes by up to 50%, capped at $6,500, for senior citizens in New Jersey who earn less than $500,000 a year.

Depending on the state’s fiscal health, changes could happen. Or maybe the ANCHOR name goes away and the property tax break comes only through Stay NJ. Or maybe nothing changes.

But we’re not there yet.

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This story was originally published in August 2024.

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