Ah yes, yet another missive from the Left complaining that the amount raised by property taxes here in NH should be paid by anyone other than by themselves. While the original is after the jump, this Letter to the Concord Monitor quickly sums up their argument (reformatted, emphasis mine):
The writer cites a $250,000 house for sale in York, Maine, whose property tax is $2,000. He asserts that is not a low property tax and that Maine’s sales and income taxes don’t hold down property taxes. I checked my 2016 Concord property tax bill and that same house would be taxed $6,835 in Concord – 3.4 times the York tax. For a retired couple living on $40,000 per year, the York tax would be 5 percent of their gross income; the Concord tax would be 17.08 percent of their income. The difference of $4,835 would pay for the heat, utilities and insurance on their house for a year, with enough left over for an occasional pizza.
Well, if John is arguing that his property tax is too high, well, I’d agree with him. His math is probably right, so I’ll hand that to him as well. What I WON’T do, however,
is go along with the fallacies built into it. Sorry, but he’s not arguing apples and oranges and that’s not just the geographical location differences. It IS all about control and who has it – you, your local town, or the State. Remember this as we quickly unpack this tactic of a little bit of truth and a whole lot of saying nothing: NH has one of the lowest overall tax rates in the nation and ME doesn’t do so well. Let’s proceed:
- Property Taxes: – the majority of Property taxes is due to the local government and how they spend your money. If you don’t like the amount, it is FAR easier to complain to your neighbors serving on those boards, commissions, et al that actually determine who and how that money is spent. It’s called accountability. It is about local control. Don’t like your taxes? Demand that people stop spending – and “bring the mob” with you to those meeting. Even at the small town local level, that both gets attention and action UNLESS those in “leadership” have come to the mindset that “this town IS our town” fiefdom and forget they are first public servants and not rulers.
John Andrews, seemingly of the Leftist persuasion with his call for income taxes, wants to remove that. How?
- If local costs are still the same but their revenues go down due to a lower property tax rate, and an income tax is set up, who collects those monies? Bingo – the State. And once at the State Capital level, politicians are oft shielded from some of the affliction that upset taxpayers can bring.
- Not only that they now have more leverage to play games with that income rate in the future as you have given them a new play toy. And when money is attached to that play toy, it turns into “political crack” and they want more and more of it. Especially Progressive politicians as they really believe it is theirs (and you don’t know how to responsibly spend it anyways).
Drifting more into the Progressives outlook on Property taxes (slightly alluded to in the Letter but more from what I have seen in the past), he brings up that old saw with a specific example: “the York tax would be 5 percent of their gross income; the Concord tax would be 17.08 percent of their income”
- The Left HATES the idea that rich people can get to keep more of their money by buying “less house” than what they really can afford.
Except that instead of doing the ratio like Andrews did, they normally put up stats that poor people pay more in Property tax than rich people as a percentage of income. What they refuse to see is:
- Everyone voluntarily gets to buy the house they want and can afford. They want to stop that?
- Some people deliberately do not pay for all the house they can afford for a multitude of reasons.
I was one – not for lowered taxes (but that is a valid reason for some) but for overall lower monthly expenses for all catagories of monies that build up “the nut” due every month in every direction – mortgage, insurance, energy costs, repair and upkeep, et al. And yes, taxes. And that’s where, I suppose, the Left hates me. Frankly, once the housing mortgage crisis starting hitting in 2007, I was real glad I had. People across the street from me? Not so much.
- It isn’t an apples to apples comparison due to the huge tax regime differences between the States.
We don’t have a sales or income tax – ME does. And a whole lotta other taxes as well. And that is and should be a huge concern:
- How can ordinary citizens keep track of them all? And when they change?
Reagan was right – they want to tax everything and it should not have to be the main job of every citizen to monitor all the time when greedy politicians (and bureaucrats) want more of their money. It gets harder and harder to have any say in the State revenue streams the further away the State Capital is. I’m in CA last nite and the group dinner’s conversation turned to that topic and the locals were lamenting their high taxes, crappy roads, the water bans, the bad schools, the traffic, and all of the other miseries THE POLITICIANS’ POLICIES have created.
And I told them how I could literally walk down the street and yell at my Representatives if I felt the need. And that I knew (because of the ‘Grok) many of them in Concord and they knew me. And they lamented (word of the day!) that it was impossible to do so in CA – heck, hard enough at their local levels, too!
What Mr. Andrews should be advocating for is similar to that in my late aunt’s home town, Mattapoisett MA. She and my uncle received a letter from the town once they turned 65 stating “Thank you for your financial support of our town these 35 years. You now no longer have to pay the educational part of your property tax; you have supported our schools long enough”.
And I thought that was fair, especially as they never had children but they did use town services.
So what say you, Mr. Andrews?
Tax comparison
In cleaning out my files I ran across a letter that, I believe, is several years old.
It was from a Monitor reader in Loudon arguing that New Hampshire’s tax structure doesn’t need reform.
The writer cites a $250,000 house for sale in York, Maine, whose property tax is $2,000. He asserts that is not a low property tax and that Maine’s sales and income taxes don’t hold down property taxes.
I checked my 2016 Concord property tax bill and that same house would be taxed $6,835 in Concord – 3.4 times the York tax.
For a retired couple living on $40,000 per year, the York tax would be 5 percent of their gross income; the Concord tax would be 17.08 percent of their income.
The difference of $4,835 would pay for the heat, utilities and insurance on their house for a year, with enough left over for an occasional pizza.
JOHN ANDREWS
Concord
