Departments > Finance > General Overview of the Tax Assessor's Office

General Overview of the Tax Assessor's Office

The primary responsibility of the Tax Assessor's Office is to equally distribute the property tax burden among its property owners. Equally distributing the tax burden involves maintaining a list of property owners and revising assessments to market value. The assessments are amended due to real estate market changes, demolitions, property improvements and assessment appeals. The Director of the Division of Taxation also requires the Assessor's Office to assist with a sales ratio study. The ratio study is used by the State of New Jersey to determine the amount of State Aid distributed to School Districts. The ratio is also used to determine the amount of county taxes each municipality pays.

Since its founding, the Constitution's of New Jersey established the property tax as the primary funding source for municipal and county services, local schools. The tax was based on a system known as "Ad Valorem". An Ad Valorem tax is based on value. This means the higher valued properties pay more than lower valued properties.

The assessment of a property is directly related to its market value. The general tax rate times the assessment is a property owner's yearly tax burden. The general tax rate is made up of several different components. Those components are the school rate, the municipal rate, fire district rate and county rate. Each individual rate is created by dividing the total assessments in a municipality by the individual budget.

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Contact Information

By Mail: 
Assessor's Office
Township of Ocean 
399 Monmouth Road
Oakhurst, NJ 07755-1589  

By Phone:
Tax Assessor
732-531-5000 x 3345 or 3346

By Fax: 
732-531-5286
 
By e-mail: 
assessor@oceantwp.org