NH Only State in Northeast to Rank in Top 10 For Business Climate - Granite Grok

NH Only State in Northeast to Rank in Top 10 For Business Climate

Tax Foundation Business Tax Climate map 2018The Tax Foundation has ranked New Hampshire 7th overall nationally in 2018 for business tax climate. This is excellent news particularly when we compared to our northeastern neighbors.

Massachusetts ranks 22nd. Maine Ranks 28th. Rhode Island is 41st, Connecticut 44th, and Vermont 47th. If you want to include New York, they rolled in at 49. And not one of them is doing anything to improve things.

But New Hampshire is.

We’ve done some good work reducing business taxes but there is still more work to be done.

This includes SB404 which would make New Hampshire a truly income tax free state.

New Hampshire is often mislabeled as a state with no income tax, as it does not impose a state tax on income received from wages or salaries. But, the state does levy a tax on another form of income, interest and dividends. The New Hampshire Senate recently passed a bill, SB 404, which would phase out the state tax on interest and dividends over the next five years. The elimination of the tax would relieve New Hampshire residents who receive income from interest and dividends, and would classify the state as truly having no income tax.

No, the bill doesn’t just end the tax.

Under current law, all annual income received from interest and dividends is taxed at a 5 percent rate. The bill proposes to phase out the tax by 1 percent each year beginning in 2020, until the tax is fully eliminated by fiscal year 2025.

This means that even if it passes both chambers and is signed into law, Republican and independents will need to get to the polls every election cycle to keep Democrats from undoing the good work the Republican legislature has done with regard to tax reform.

It only takes one bad election.

Democrats will not hem and haw about their priorities. Given the chance, as they have in the past, they will drive as far left as the can, over project revenue estimates, and spend us into a bigger budget that will demand higher taxes. They did it in 2006 and 2008, and they’d do it again.

It’s your property, not the states. When given the opportunity vote in primaries to support more fiscally responsible Republicans, and vote in the general election to keep more of your hard-earned dollars where they belong. In your pocket.

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