Garden State Plaza Avoiding $17.1M in Annual Property Taxes, Union Reports

Australian labor union, United Voice, released a report Monday claiming that Westfield, owners of Garden State Plaza, is shortchanging the Borough of Paramus by $17.1 million in property taxes annually.

The report, titled “Westfield’s Two Faces: Community Consequences of Tax Avoidance,” shows the Garden State Plaza’s appraised value as $670.8 million.

The United Voice report states in an annual report, Westfield reported the worth of the Garden State Plaza to be $1.68 billion to their shareholders. Those numbers indicated that Westfield’s Garden State Plaza is only paying property taxes on 40 percent of the shareholder value. The difference in property taxes for the borough on $1.68 billion and $670.8 million, is $17.1 million.

The report goes on to show that 59 percent of property tax is designated to schools in New Jersey and that the average salary for a teacher is $48,101 annually in the state. According to those numbers, 209 teachers could be paid annually by the “tax avoidance.”

According a report by nj.com, Paramus and Westfield have negotiated an assessed value of $851 million after a recent $150 million expansion was added.

The full report, which claims that Westfield is avoiding taxes at many of their United States locations, is available in the above story.