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I have lived in my home for forty years,
and always paied my taxes.Two years ago I lost my wife and also her ss.
With both our ss checks we were just able to keep up. but now on just my ss
I am having to borrow to pay my property taxes.I do not own an expencive
house,my taxes are only 2,260 pr year
but that is a lot when you only get 1,000
pr month.There should be some relife for
elderly tax payers who live in their own
low cost housing,Its not right to be in dangerof loseing our homes after paying
all these years. Donald Kennett
I
- Donald Kennett, Charlestown NH

The whole question should not used as a Derby to see which state is clever enough to confiscate the maximum of your dollars for enhancing the political power of the few. Those people that think that one form of taxation is fairer than the other is like saying cyanide is better than anti-freeze. Expect less from government, hold their feet to the fire and prevent their escalating costs. In Hampton, we spend about $15,000 per pupil in our high school. That is still not enough!!!. Meanwhile, our 15-year olds score below average in Math, Science and reading among 56 countries that participate in the testing. The top finishing country Finland spends one half of what we spend. Let us get off the merry-go-around of spending spree in our public schools with nothing to support our continued high standard of living expectation in the future. A big chunk of your tax dollars are tied up in education.
- Ananta K Gopalan, Hampton, NH

To paraphrase Mass. Gov. John Volpe, "Vote for this Sales Tax measure and you will prevent a Real Estate Tax increase.
NEVER HAPPENED.
- O A Henry, Lincoln

Yeah I remember living in New York where you pay income, sales, property, capital gains and yes even an isolated schools tax to pay the bills. If we can keep the discussion around one tax going up and down it is logical.

Paying your taxes is not about your 'ability to pay,' even when its income tax. Paying your taxes is paying a bill, just because you make 35k a year it is entirely possible you cannot keep up with the cost of living and therefore experience the 'inability' to pay. I urge all tax designers and implementers to go home and leave NH alone.
- Robert, Manchester, NH

Those of you who erroneously believe that a sales tax and/or income tax would lower property taxes are quite wrong. History has shown us over and over again that the politicians lie and mislead voters into believing that. And then, after the income/sales taxes are introduced, property taxes go up again. Do not trust the lies of politicians or their corrupt enables in the teacher's unions or other unions. Property taxes are the most efficient and fair means of collecting taxes as voters can have a significant say in local spending. With an income or sales tax, it will be the corrupt politicians in Concord that have TOTAL say over where the money goes.
- Bob Hoskins, Derry

NH's property tax situation tells any business student much about life in America. We get one or two bills per year...but they are big...and as a result most families haven't saved for such and are overwhelmed.
Much like savings, if they had done a little over the long term it wouldn't be a big deal. Other states take advantage of this with small taxes on each purchase..and nobody notices !
- Tom, Hanover, NH

Taxes, Taxes , Taxes
I thought they were bad when I lived in Jaffrey, New Hampshire.
In 2001 , I moved to Pennsylvania...My first tax bill was in March of 2002 , I opened the envelope and 4 different tax slips fell out. In June of that same year. I got my other tax envelope and it was higher than the first one. We paid a tax to be able to work, small but a tax. Sales tax, county tax,right to work tax, school tax, state tax and any other thing they can think of to tax us, watch out. Our Democratic Govenor in his 6 years has grown government 38 percent or more.
we do not go to town meeting , we have none. they send it and say ,"Pay It" What can we do? NOTHING!
- Elvin Eshelman, East Berlin, Pennsylvania

The reason the property tax is unfair is because it is not based on your ability to pay. If you tax my income, fine, it's based on a percentage of my income. If you implement a sales tax, fine, I can choose what I purchase and control my tax exposure that way. My latest tax bill had my home assessed at least $44,000 above fair market value. That fact is the NH property tax is subjective and arbitrary.
- RJ, Concord

My taxes are causing me to have great financial problems. There much to high - my husband and I are both senior citizens who have to work and still can't make ends meet. I agree any one can massage the numbers. I believe once your children are not in school and you reach a certain age that part of your taxes should be eliminated.
- Linda D., Raymond, NH

The property tax system used in NH is the most efficient way to collect taxes. The collection burden is spread throughout the state to the town clerks, people who have other administrative duties within their communities than to collect property taxes. The majority of these clerks would be on the town payroll even if there were no property taxes. Not only is this system efficient, it is much more cost effective than a sales or income tax system. To replace the statewide bottom-line tax contribution that we presently have, the gross taxes collected through sales and income taxes would have to be much larger than the property tax gross presently collected because they require a centralized collection bureaucracy and that bureaucracy wants to get paid. The net result for this type of tax is we, you and I, assume a much higher tax burden on our wages and purchases, so we can hire a lot of people we presently do not employ to get the same tax contribution we presently get. I don’t think so.
- Bill, Exeter

On another note. All of you seniors living on a fixed income answer me this question. If all of you were lifelong NH residents why didnt you try to get a broadbased tax passed 20, 30, 40 years ago? Oh, thats right becase you were benefiting from NH being pretty much a tax free state.

I guess what's good for the goose isn't good for the gander.
- Pete Versais, Concord NH

I recently saw a good friend of mine who lives in Syracuse NY. He and his wife bought a home for $150,000. The taxes on that home are $5,500! On top of that they have to pay a state income tax, and a 8.25% sales tax, which is being raised to 8.75% this coming summer.

Property taxes will not decline, if a broadbased tax is imposed, it is pure fact supported by empirical evidence. If you really want to pay a sales and income tax I suggest you move somewhere else.
- Pete Versais, Concord NH

RCN - unless your income is below the threshold where you could possibly afford a house that is taxed at $3500 per year, the amount you save between sales AND income tax is more than $3500. Also, don't forget to factor in that you'd be paying any sales tax with post-tax dollars, so the negative impact is greater than it may seem on the surface. According to http://www.retirementliving.com/RLtaxes.html, NH has the second lowest total tax burden in the country.
- Jose H, Manchester, NH

"New Hampshire’s property tax burden ranks between 13th and 45th in the nation."

Base on that quote this is this the most useless study on this ever. We are going to get taxed, it more comes down the the fairness issue. When I was unemployed for 6 months a few years ago I paid 35% of my unemployment income to state taxes. Not even getting into senior citizens. The argument on one side is income tax is fairer(well IT IS more fair tan prop tax), the argument against it is the politicians will have a new source of revenue and will abuse it(likely they will). We do vote for these people so in theory we could vote in people that won't overspend. Best interim option is legalized gambling but that seems to go nowhere.
- Kevin, Derry, NH

To Don's point, I agree number crunchers can make there case by some abstract formula's. The problem is you have no way of controling expenses. At least with a sales tax, you can make decisions on buying a product based on whether you want to pay a certain amount for a sales tax. I believe the time has come to evenly distribute the way the state collect money. To burden a homeowner with property taxes is not right! What it does is limit and in some cases drive out the elderly owner who has lived here all there lives and want to retire and die here. Is that what NH has come to. And as far as education, everything I see and read indicates that NH is headed in the opposite direction (down). The system needs to change and take some of the burden off of the homeowner
- Jim, Manchester

I have family on Long Island, and their property taxes are pretty close to what I pay, and then they have sales and income taxes. We do indeed have green grass right here in NH.
- Mike, Bedford, NH

sorry jose, but if you cut my property tax in half, i'm sure i would not be paying $3500.00 in sales tax. the state needs a sales tax to make sure everyone pays into the system. take for instance someone moves to a town like derry, they rent and their kids go to pinkerton. they get a great education, pay cheap rent, no income or sales tax.
- rcn, manchester

Don of Henniker while I understand your situation you need to look at the bigger picture. My fiance lives in Mass. Last year she paid that state over $3000 in income tax, over $3800 in property tax and then you can throw in the state sales tax which is not easy to keep track of. Her property taxes wehnt up 4% this year.
The point is she has a small modest home on hardley any land but pays more in taxes that you do for your property.
It is no secret that no matter what you are going to pay. The question always becomes to who and how much.
There is not now nor has there ever been any new tax added that reduced existing taxes.
One thing your right about is the influx of new residents and their demand for services.
All I am saying is you will pay no matter what but what we need to do is hold all our elected officials responsible for their spending and an open book as to what they are doing with our tax dollars.
- Bill B., Pelham

I will look forward to finding out just where this study was published, peer reviewed and who financed it. When I follow back the authors mentioned I find that they are part of the defense, intelligence, and homeland security communities. Sounds to me like Cato or the Heritage Foundation or Bartlett. As Naomi Klein says a think tank is where people are paid to think by those who build tanks.
- Robert, Deerfield

I do understand that what we pay in property taxes is not so bad when you consider we do not have a sales or income tax.

What I can't understand is why we rely so heavily on a tax that is so subjective and has nothing to do with peoples income. Regardless of how the tax is raised (property, sales, income) the State, Counties and Towns as they do relying just on the property tax. It would be nice to know as my income rises and falls what I would owe in taxes. Instead of praying for the best as I open my letter from the town showing my new rates.
- Mike, Manchester

John, just wondering what is the state income tax rate in Virginia, and what is the sales tax rate.I'm sure that will bring up the $1560 total.
- tom, manchester

Don, I'm sorry to say that I find your post quite hypocritical. You are blasting someone for allegedly providing numbers in a slanted way to prove their case, and then you went on to provide only two numbers without any of the contextual data to prove your point.

I was astounded this study only considered property taxes. I do understand the arguments of supposedly better education because of the tax revenue from those who have no children in the system (such as myself), but to get a better picture of why a NH resident's tax is not out of line you have to consider that NH has no sales tax and no income tax. If you work in state and spend your money in state, this more than makes up for the differences between NH property tax rates and those of comparable states that have the other two forms of tax.
- Jose H, Manchester, NH

Great another number cruncher that works the numbers to agree with what they want them to look like. A property owner pays taxes , in my case over $6,000 a year and you tell me my burden is not that bad because there is people from out of state that have to pay taxes on their second residences here but don't use our services. By the way I live on a fixed income like a lot of other older people. You had better factor in the fact that many of these out of staters are the factor for the enormous run up in the price of the houses here. Now I just looked at the house I used to own in Virginia and the tax on that property is $1560 and that house sold last year for twice what my house here costs. After spending years working for both IBM and Siemens I can tell you that any number cruncher can massage the numbers to provide the conclusion they want to support. Numbers do not tell the entire story and they never will.
- Don Armstrong, Henniker