New NJ Corporate Tax Break Program Appears to Repeat Old Mistakes

New Jersey is on the verge of passing a new $11.5 billion corporate tax incentive program after Gov. Phil Murphy announced he'd reached a deal with legislative leaders earlier this week.

Murphy had spent two years fighting a bloated tax break program that allowed political insiders to reap huge benefits. A task force convened by the governor found multiple instances of fraud in the program. But a draft of a bill that became public on Thursday shows the new program appears to award some of the same gifts to political insiders that doomed its controversial predecessor. 

Like the Economic Opportunity Act of 2013, the new bill gives tax breaks for specific South Jersey projects with connections to Democratic Party powerbroker George Norcross.  For example, there's a provision that a company can be eligible for a tax break if it works with a nonprofit organization "with a mission dedicated to attracting investment and completing development and redevelopment projects in a Garden State Growth Zone." That description only applies to a small number of firms, one of which is Cooper's Ferry Partnership, a Camden-based nonprofit Norcross took over in 2014. 

Another passage in the bill provides a tax credit to vendors in the South Jersey film industry. The chairman of the Assembly Appropriations Committee, John Burzichelli —a Norcross ally — owns a company that fits that exact description.

The bill is 218 pages long. The State Legislature is holding committee hearings on Friday, and the measure is scheduled for a floor vote on Monday, just days after it was made public.