Terms Used In New Jersey Statutes 54:4-1.14

  • Equitable: Pertaining to civil suits in "equity" rather than in "law." In English legal history, the courts of "law" could order the payment of damages and could afford no other remedy. See damages. A separate court of "equity" could order someone to do something or to cease to do something. See, e.g., injunction. In American jurisprudence, the federal courts have both legal and equitable power, but the distinction is still an important one. For example, a trial by jury is normally available in "law" cases but not in "equity" cases. Source: U.S. Courts
  • Personal property: All property that is not real property.
  • Personal property: includes goods and chattels, rights and credits, moneys and effects, evidences of debt, choses in action and all written instruments by which any right to, interest in, or lien or encumbrance upon, property or any debt or financial obligation is created, acknowledged, evidenced, transferred, discharged or defeated, in whole or in part, and everything except real property as herein defined which may be the subject of ownership. See New Jersey Statutes 1:1-2
  • State: extends to and includes any State, territory or possession of the United States, the District of Columbia and the Canal Zone. See New Jersey Statutes 1:1-2
2. The Legislature finds and declares that since 1979 New Jersey has lost a major share of its manufacturing jobs and manufacturing plants and this trend has persisted throughout periods of economic recovery and periods of recession. The Legislature also finds that New Jersey’s manufacturing sector, notwithstanding the recent losses, continues to be an important source of relatively high-paying employment for a large portion of the work force and an essential foundation for the rest of the economy, serving as a larger multiplier of jobs in the economy than any other sector. The Legislature further finds that in order to retain manufacturing jobs it is in the interest of the business community, municipalities and the State of New Jersey to maintain a policy regarding the taxation of business personal property which is historically consistent, equitable and competitive with neighboring states and which creates and maintains reasonable incentives for manufacturing interests to exist and thrive in New Jersey. The Legislature, therefore, declares that it is the policy of the State, through this act, to refine the definitions of real property and personal property in order to reaffirm the broad exclusion from local property taxes of business personal property used or held for use in business.

L.1992,c.24,s.2.