Legislative Action Center

SUPPORT A1066

The NJCPA and the New Jersey Civil Justice Institute support this legislation which would limit the amount of appeal bonds in civil actions to $50 million. When a defendant loses a case at trial and the plaintiff receives a monetary award, state law typically allows the plaintiff to collect that money as soon as the trial court proceedings are completed. In many cases, however, the defendant will appeal to a higher court seeking reversal of the trial court’s determination. Under current New Jersey law, the defendant must post a bond for the full amount of the award while the appeal is pending.

With awards now reaching hundreds of millions of dollars, it is often financially ruinous for a defendant to post such a large bond, and this de facto inability to appeal is used by plaintiff attorneys as a club against defendants. Defendants are forced to settle cases even though they are confident an unfair award would be lowered or dismissed at the appellate level. This legislation would help ensure that the appellate level remains open to defendants who are hit with large damages at the trial level.

The CPA profession’s concern about the impact of having to post huge appeal bonds is not just theoretical. There have been many multi-million-dollar judgments against CPA firms. For example, in the 2007 case of Banco Espirito v. BDO International in Florida, the CPA firm BDO was held liable for $522 million. If Florida had not enacted legislation similar to A434 in the previous year, BDO would probably not have been able to post a bond of $522 million and would probably have gone out of business. That would have put the 2,700 people who work at BDO out of work. Instead, BDO was able to appeal, and the case was eventually dismissed.

SUPPORT A1306

This bill would realign the New Jersey transfer inheritance tax payment due date to coincide with the payment due dates for the state and federal estate taxes. The purpose of this bill is to simplify New Jersey’s inheritance tax filing procedures. It was introduced at the request of the NJCPA State Tax Interest Group.

SUPPORT A2786, S1788

In an effort to promote investment and job creation in New Jersey, the NJCPA drafted this bill that that would follow the lead of the federal government and the vast majority of states in offering Internal Revenue Code Section 1202 capital gains tax incentives to targeted New Jersey-based businesses owners who are willing to make a long-term commitment to investing in small and midsize New Jersey-based companies. There is no immediate impact on state revenues because investors are not eligible for the tax break unless they hold onto the stock for at least five years.

SUPPORT A1804

This legislation would modify state laws to encourage and facilitate shared services, joint contracts and consolidations. The aim is to improve efficiencies and reduce property taxes.

OPPOSE A931

This bill would requires any vendor with a New Jersey state agency contract for information technology services exceeding $100,000 to use software to verify that all hours billed for work on a computer be verifiable by software specified by the state. This allows for the capturing of sensitive, oftentimes personal, information with no way to delete the information that is stored. It creates a significant risk to sensitive business, personal and state-owned data.

SUPPORT S654

This bill would modernize several important elements of New Jersey’s budget process and financial reporting requirements to make information that is considered by the executive and legislative branches in enacting the annual budget more transparent and publicly available. These include annual state revenue estimating, revenue and expenditure reporting, budget contingency planning and economic stress testing. The bill would also establish a New Jersey Revenue Advisory Board to provide consensus revenue forecasting advice for state budget purposes. The Board would consist of six members: the State Treasurer (ex officio), the Legislative Budget and Finance Officer (ex officio) and four public members. 

SUPPORT S1884, A4090

This bill, drafted by the NJCPA and New Jersey Business & Industry Association, would require the state auditor to release an annual plain-English summary of the 400+ page New Jersey Annual Comprehensive Financial Report (ACFR). This bill also includes several provisions to make New Jersey’s budget process more transparent.

SUPPORT S676, A2058

This bill would index New Jersey income tax brackets to inflation, which is important to avoid unintended tax increases and to advance tax fairness and equity. This bill would provide relief to many taxpayers, making New Jersey more affordable. The bill has widespread support from both fiscally conservative and fiscally progressive groups. Nearly half of the states have some form of indexing for their state income taxes, and the federal government indexes their income tax brackets.

SUPPORT S733, A2152

This bill would allocate sufficient funds to the unemployment compensation fund from federal government assistance that New Jersey received. It would halt increases in employer unemployment taxes related to benefits paid during the pandemic state of emergency.

SUPPORT S3704

This bill would revise the New Jersey Business Alternative Income Tax (BAIT) to permit designation of electing resident S corporation and to include all income of electing resident S corporation in calculation of liability. It would provide the same treatment to S corporation income provided to partnership income under current law. An S corporation that certifies that all of its shareholders are New Jersey residents would be designated as an “electing resident S corporation.” The income tax liability of an electing resident S corporation would be calculated based on all of its income, whether or not that income is allocated to New Jersey. An S corporation would submit the certification when it elects to pay the pass-through business alternative income tax. The certification would be made annually.

Read more about the BAIT

SUPPORT A2946, S340

Internal Revenue Code (IRC) Section 280E forbids companies engaged in illegal drug activities from deducting business expenses. New Jersey piggybacks on this provision. On a federal level, this makes sense since cannabis is illegal. It doesn’t make sense on a state level where it is now legal. This bill would decouple cannabis companies from 280E. This bill was drafted by our Cannabis Interest Group.

Read more cannabis-related news

SUPPORT A4263, S2819

This bill would protect financial institutions and insurers doing business with the cannabis industry from being penalized by state regulators.

Read more cannabis-related news

OPPOSE, A3715, S1410

This legislation would place so many broad restrictions on restrictive covenants it would effectively ban them from employment agreements.

SUPPORT S3156, A4621

This bill would require issuance of a report on certain information and data on processing of applications for professional and occupational licenses and mandate review of training and call intake in the Division of Consumer Affairs.

SUPPORT A3683, S2378

This bill would provide tax credits to small businesses to offset the steep increase in Unemployment Insurance contributions that has occurred due to the COVID pandemic.

OPPOSE IF NOT AMENDED, A1691

The NJCPA supports strengthening New Jersey’s sexual harassment laws, but this legislation is unnecessarily onerous and is a windfall for trial lawyers. It would essentially turn any employee or customer interaction into potential litigation. Most troubling is that it would eliminate the “severe or pervasive” standard established by decades of court precedent in order to prevail in a discrimination or harassment claim, replacing it with the standard that conduct be more than “petty slights or trivial inconveniences.” The bill goes even further by eliminating the longstanding requirement that the conduct complained of must be seen as harassing or discriminatory by a reasonable person. Now, the only test is subjective and even the requirement for harm has been removed. This sets the bar far too low. Such a standard of actionable behavior would have significant, and perhaps unintended, impacts on the workplace and individual interactions.

SUPPORT A1576

This bill would require creditors, lenders or student financing companies to register with the New Jersey Commissioner of Banking and Insurance and with the Nationwide Multistate Licensing System and Registry. Lenders would provide the Commissioner with certain information about the entities and student loans they provide, which would then be posted to the Department of Banking and Insurance's website, and lenders would post on their websites a copy of each model promissory note, agreement, contract or other instrument they use to substantiate a private education loan. The bill would also require private education lenders to disclose certain information to borrowers, including information about cosigner releases and refinancing.

SUPPORT A1296

This bill would mandate that New Jersey high school graduation requirements include instruction on tuition assistance programs and student loan debt. It would also require high school students to meet with their guidance counselor to discuss tuition assistance and dual enrollment.

Read more about student loan debt

SUPPORT A4033, S2657

This bill would permanently extend the deadline for the completion of a school district’s annual audit until the Jan. 31 following the end of the school fiscal year and its submission to the Commissioner of Education until the Feb. 5 following the end of the school fiscal year. The bill would also provide that, notwithstanding the extended deadline for the submission of a school district’s annual audit report, and notwithstanding the provisions of any law to the contrary, a school district would be required to submit the Audit Summary to the commissioner not later than the Jan. 15 following the end of the school fiscal year.