Red Bank Councilman Mike DuPont says it may be time to end tax-exemptions for most non-profits.

In the latest round of verbal sparring between Red Bank officials and the town’s representatives in Trenton, Councilman Mike DuPont has floated what he hopes is a solution to the borough’s fiscal woes that all can embrace:

Tax non-profits.

It’s done elsewhere, and is under consideration in additional locales, DuPont says in a March 18 letter he sent to state Senator Jennifer Beck.

Previously, the all-Democrat borough council blasted the GOP troika of Beck and Assembly reps Caroline Casgrande and Declan O’Scanlon for failing to lobby on Red Bank’s behalf for a greater share of state aid.

The rationale, the Democrats say, is the unfair burden of nonprofits that own 16.6 percent of the borough’s property, depriving the town of some $1.7 million annually in property taxes.

The Beck team, though, fired back that the council hadn’t shown fiscal restraint of its own when it granted annualized three-percent salary and wage increases to non-unionized workers last year.

In the latest missive, which contains numerous grammatical and syntax errors, DuPont writes:

In light of your most recent negative response, I have come up with another idea for the State who faces steep declines in revenues to assist the State in these difficult times. I am suggesting eliminating various tax exemptions for non for profit groups. For example, maybe requiring charities to pay one (1%) percent tax considering making them subject to sales tax, or a lien of taxes or maybe requiring non-for-profit to enter into payment in lieu of taxes.

Elsewhere in the letter, DuPont says, “I would recommend that Churches and other religious institutes be exempt from the tax measures.”

Here’s the letter in its entirety: dupont-letter-040510