2023 Meredith Tax Rate & Bills Coming Today - Page 2

John Mercier · 12-30-2023, 01:39 PM

If the average base assessment was 63% increase, and your assessment was a 97% increase, then your taxes should have gone to $17.6K

If you paid half of the $13.1K in July, roughly $6550, your current bill would be for the remaining $11K

Your annual taxes would be $17.6K

The July is an estimate base on previous assessment and budget.

Your new annual tax would be $17.6K, old $13.1K, with an actual increase of $4.5K

Not that this should make you feel better... but that is the math.

Barring a new assessment, a failure of the Legislature to fix the State ED, or some new expenditure at the town/county that is extraordinary... the July bill should be about $8.8K

The property would be assessed around $1.76M

Winilyme · 12-30-2023, 06:19 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by John Mercier

If the average base assessment was 63% increase, and your assessment was a 97% increase, then your taxes should have gone to $17.6K

If you paid half of the $13.1K in July, roughly $6550, your current bill would be for the remaining $11K

Your annual taxes would be $17.6K

The July is an estimate base on previous assessment and budget.

Your new annual tax would be $17.6K, old $13.1K, with an actual increase of $4.5K

Not that this should make you feel better... but that is the math.

Barring a new assessment, a failure of the Legislature to fix the State ED, or some new expenditure at the town/county that is extraordinary... the July bill should be about $8.8K

The property would be assessed around $1.76M

Well, if that’s the math then, yes, you have made me feel at least a little bit better, John. Thanks.

thinkxingu · 12-31-2023, 07:23 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ishoot308

It comes from... "measured as total individual taxes paid divided by total personal income"...Pretty simple really.

Please tell me what state is doing it better than NH??....and PLEASE don't say Massachusetts!!...or Maine, or Vermont, or Connecticut...I could go on and on...

Enough talk about sales tax!! The people of NH have spoken about this many times and we do NOT want it here!

Dan

There's something...demoralizing about "everyday" taxes. We're in Florida for the week, and EVERYTHING is taxed—food, products, admissions, etc.—and it's awful.

Sent from my SM-S911U using Tapatalk

ishoot308 · 12-31-2023, 09:14 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by thinkxingu

There's something...demoralizing about "everyday" taxes. We're in Florida for the week, and EVERYTHING is taxed—food, products, admissions, etc.—and it's awful.

Sent from my SM-S911U using Tapatalk

Exactly Think!…and why would us Granite Staters want “awful” in NH?….we don’t!

Dan

John Mercier · 12-31-2023, 12:20 PM

Well, to return to constitutionalism, they are going to have to decide what taxes get raised. $500M a year doesn't just appear out of thin air.

If they decide to get rid of SWEPT, so the return to donor towns doesn't happen... the sum would be nearly double.

Getting a billion dollars out of our current sales and income tax regime would transform life in NH in unimaginable ways.

The overall per capita would not change... the overall sum wouldn't change... just the means of reaching the overall sum.

Chimi · 12-31-2023, 12:38 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by John Mercier

Well, to return to constitutionalism, they are going to have to decide what taxes get raised. $500M a year doesn't just appear out of thin air.

If they decide to get rid of SWEPT, so the return to donor towns doesn't happen... the sum would be nearly double.

Getting a billion dollars out of our current sales and income tax regime would transform life in NH in unimaginable ways.

The overall per capita would not change... the overall sum wouldn't change... just the means of reaching the overall sum.

Casinos would be a good place to start. Think of all the money that people now spend at out of state casinos.

Descant · 12-31-2023, 02:16 PM

The trend more and more is to rely on taxes when we want to buy something big. Not so long ago, if folks wanted something they got together and raised the money from those who were interested. Many fire trucks have been paid for by Ham and bean suppers. Locally, we replace fire equipment every 15 years or so. "It's past its useful life" But some other town buys it at salvage, fixes it up and is very proud of the truck and the volunteers who made it possible. Reputedly, the top public high school in the state is the Academy of Science and Design in Nashua. No band, no varsity sports. They teach languages (14 last I heard) with Rosetta Stone and native speakers who are hired part time. And when Town meeting starts to get frugal, the school boards respond by saying, "OK. We'll eliminate football" and they get whatever they want. There are strong lobbies out there, and they aren't pushing for better academics.

John Mercier · 12-31-2023, 02:21 PM

We have casinos.
I live in Belmont. The casino is right down the road.

Even the Lottery, which has its revenue added into the State Adequacy Grants, doesn't produce significant amounts of money when the overall picture is taken into consideration.

And the State would only derive revenues, as it does now, from food sales.

Descant · 12-31-2023, 02:36 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by John Mercier

And the State would only derive revenues, as it does now, from food sales.

Past proposals (all failed) included huge licensing fees and a lot more hotel/room tax revenue projections. However, nobody talked about increased administrative costs, policing, other municipal services that come out of a town budget.
NH still suffers from newbies who want to change what is working well instead of learning from our experience.

John Mercier · 12-31-2023, 02:54 PM

They failed because they failed to see two issues.
One, the casinos already exist... they just don't have the budgets to spend a lot on increasing marketing because we don't have ''whales'' - we have small time retail players that cost more to service.

The second issue is that constitutionally, the State would need legislation that is constitutional. The proponents of casinos were not willing to go in that direction.

John Mercier · 01-01-2024, 02:38 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Descant

The trend more and more is to rely on taxes when we want to buy something big. Not so long ago, if folks wanted something they got together and raised the money from those who were interested. Many fire trucks have been paid for by Ham and bean suppers. Locally, we replace fire equipment every 15 years or so. "It's past its useful life" But some other town buys it at salvage, fixes it up and is very proud of the truck and the volunteers who made it possible. Reputedly, the top public high school in the state is the Academy of Science and Design in Nashua. No band, no varsity sports. They teach languages (14 last I heard) with Rosetta Stone and native speakers who are hired part time. And when Town meeting starts to get frugal, the school boards respond by saying, "OK. We'll eliminate football" and they get whatever they want. There are strong lobbies out there, and they aren't pushing for better academics.

This true. But none of what you've brought up is included in State mandates to local districts. We have a mandate to teach five (?) credits of a second language (English is the State Official Language), but do not have to employee a teacher(s) for more than that one additional language.
The State cannot be expected to pay for band or sports teams. Only its mandates.

The Legislature seems to think that if it makes a mandate, but doesn't call it part of education, that it doesn't have to pay for it at the State level.
This is either a complete competency failure of our legislators to understand the NH Constitution, or just a complete refusal to keep their Oath to the NH Constitution.
We have seen this for a long time on lots of issues... this one just gets the most media traction as it impacts such a large portion of the mechanism by which taxes are raised to reach what all those legislators want.

How would structure a big ticket sales tax? Would it raise enough money without shifting purchases to other States? And what would be the odds of new tax taking hold in NH?

Descant · 01-01-2024, 03:09 PM

My friends in the legislature are always aware of "Article 28-a" issues when working on new legislation. The catch 22 is that 28-a was passed in the early 80's as I recall. Anything that was mandated prior to that is grandfathered and there is some loose interpretation of what that means. To my knowledge, no school district or town has taken the issue to court. The issues around schools all came from "cherish" not 28-a as far as I can tell.

Good news: I believe this is the last year for the interest and dividends income tax which is being phased out, unless the legislature changes their mind in the 2024 session.

I foresee some juggling on the Rooms and Meals tax which is higher than surrounding states, but appears to not have a negative impact on tourism. Nevertheless, I think this is our biggest "sales tax" which Concord denies because it is not a "general" sales tax. As Gov. Thompson said "Low spending means low taxes".

Apologies to the OP for getting away from Meredith taxes. I'll try to behave myself moving forward.

John Mercier · 01-01-2024, 04:46 PM

I believe the Court focused on ''duty''; since the Legislature had already taken upon itself to set standards and mandates prior to the 1982 adoption of Part First Article 28-a

The Legislature created the State Board of Education in 1919, and empowered it with the ''management and supervision of all public schools''

The adoption of Article 28-a in 1982 only grandfathered programs that were not changed in any way.
There is no educational mandate that has not come after or been modified since that time.

Part First Article 28-a was add just after Governor Thomson. His ''Low spending'' was to move it off the State budget and place it locally; and that wasn't just education. Before the adoption of that article, doing so was completely constitutional. Had it been taken the ''Low spending'' comes from not mandating programs, Article 28-a would not exist today.

This last round had a lot of Article 28-a in it. Edelblut argued that though the State mandated - and did not pay for several things - he felt that those were not within the adequate education definition. I think the judge was amazed that our Education Commissioner had no clue that a mandate had to be paid for regardless of how it is ''defined''.

They got themselves caught on capping the grants by arguing that no inflation had occurred - seems the lawyer had a bad habit of screaming about the ''Biden Inflation'' on Facebook... and then making a statement that no inflation had occurred.

Then they got caught trying to explain how any of the State taxation is not redistributed with some donor towns and some receiver towns. I seem to remember reading the transcript asking if the money from business in a certain town are only return to that town rather than distributed to other towns.

By the way, that was a suggestion that I placed into effect. State Senator Gallus took it up before the study committee determined the north country would see a strong drop in their share of the proceeds.

The size of our State government is directly relate to the legislators... even now the LSRs have a whole bunch of mandates and modifications they want to make on education and other factors.

Somehow I doubt they will come to the conclusion to just simplify the mandates. Just like the local boards add the ''extras'' because of emotion, the Legislature is not immune.

How they raise the money - even though the same overall amount will actually be spent - will be interesting.

12-31-2023, 02:16 PM	#107
Descant Senior Member Join Date: Mar 2006 Location: Merrimack and Welch Island Posts: 4,039 Thanks: 1,212 Thanked 1,518 Times in 985 Posts	spend better, not more The trend more and more is to rely on taxes when we want to buy something big. Not so long ago, if folks wanted something they got together and raised the money from those who were interested. Many fire trucks have been paid for by Ham and bean suppers. Locally, we replace fire equipment every 15 years or so. "It's past its useful life" But some other town buys it at salvage, fixes it up and is very proud of the truck and the volunteers who made it possible. Reputedly, the top public high school in the state is the Academy of Science and Design in Nashua. No band, no varsity sports. They teach languages (14 last I heard) with Rosetta Stone and native speakers who are hired part time. And when Town meeting starts to get frugal, the school boards respond by saying, "OK. We'll eliminate football" and they get whatever they want. There are strong lobbies out there, and they aren't pushing for better academics.

12-30-2023, 01:39 PM	#101
John Mercier Senior Member Join Date: Jun 2021 Posts: 2,983 Thanks: 2 Thanked 529 Times in 435 Posts	If the average base assessment was 63% increase, and your assessment was a 97% increase, then your taxes should have gone to $17.6K If you paid half of the $13.1K in July, roughly $6550, your current bill would be for the remaining $11K Your annual taxes would be $17.6K The July is an estimate base on previous assessment and budget. Your new annual tax would be $17.6K, old $13.1K, with an actual increase of $4.5K Not that this should make you feel better... but that is the math. Barring a new assessment, a failure of the Legislature to fix the State ED, or some new expenditure at the town/county that is extraordinary... the July bill should be about $8.8K The property would be assessed around $1.76M

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12-31-2023, 12:20 PM	#105
John Mercier Senior Member Join Date: Jun 2021 Posts: 2,983 Thanks: 2 Thanked 529 Times in 435 Posts	Well, to return to constitutionalism, they are going to have to decide what taxes get raised. $500M a year doesn't just appear out of thin air. If they decide to get rid of SWEPT, so the return to donor towns doesn't happen... the sum would be nearly double. Getting a billion dollars out of our current sales and income tax regime would transform life in NH in unimaginable ways. The overall per capita would not change... the overall sum wouldn't change... just the means of reaching the overall sum.

12-31-2023, 02:21 PM	#108
John Mercier Senior Member Join Date: Jun 2021 Posts: 2,983 Thanks: 2 Thanked 529 Times in 435 Posts	We have casinos. I live in Belmont. The casino is right down the road. Even the Lottery, which has its revenue added into the State Adequacy Grants, doesn't produce significant amounts of money when the overall picture is taken into consideration. And the State would only derive revenues, as it does now, from food sales.

The Following User Says Thank You to Descant For This Useful Post:
ishoot308 (12-31-2023)

12-31-2023, 02:54 PM	#110
John Mercier Senior Member Join Date: Jun 2021 Posts: 2,983 Thanks: 2 Thanked 529 Times in 435 Posts	They failed because they failed to see two issues. One, the casinos already exist... they just don't have the budgets to spend a lot on increasing marketing because we don't have ''whales'' - we have small time retail players that cost more to service. The second issue is that constitutionally, the State would need legislation that is constitutional. The proponents of casinos were not willing to go in that direction.

01-01-2024, 03:09 PM	#112
Descant Senior Member Join Date: Mar 2006 Location: Merrimack and Welch Island Posts: 4,039 Thanks: 1,212 Thanked 1,518 Times in 985 Posts	My friends in the legislature are always aware of "Article 28-a" issues when working on new legislation. The catch 22 is that 28-a was passed in the early 80's as I recall. Anything that was mandated prior to that is grandfathered and there is some loose interpretation of what that means. To my knowledge, no school district or town has taken the issue to court. The issues around schools all came from "cherish" not 28-a as far as I can tell. Good news: I believe this is the last year for the interest and dividends income tax which is being phased out, unless the legislature changes their mind in the 2024 session. I foresee some juggling on the Rooms and Meals tax which is higher than surrounding states, but appears to not have a negative impact on tourism. Nevertheless, I think this is our biggest "sales tax" which Concord denies because it is not a "general" sales tax. As Gov. Thompson said "Low spending means low taxes". Apologies to the OP for getting away from Meredith taxes. I'll try to behave myself moving forward.

01-01-2024, 04:46 PM	#113
John Mercier Senior Member Join Date: Jun 2021 Posts: 2,983 Thanks: 2 Thanked 529 Times in 435 Posts	I believe the Court focused on ''duty''; since the Legislature had already taken upon itself to set standards and mandates prior to the 1982 adoption of Part First Article 28-a The Legislature created the State Board of Education in 1919, and empowered it with the ''management and supervision of all public schools'' The adoption of Article 28-a in 1982 only grandfathered programs that were not changed in any way. There is no educational mandate that has not come after or been modified since that time. Part First Article 28-a was add just after Governor Thomson. His ''Low spending'' was to move it off the State budget and place it locally; and that wasn't just education. Before the adoption of that article, doing so was completely constitutional. Had it been taken the ''Low spending'' comes from not mandating programs, Article 28-a would not exist today. This last round had a lot of Article 28-a in it. Edelblut argued that though the State mandated - and did not pay for several things - he felt that those were not within the adequate education definition. I think the judge was amazed that our Education Commissioner had no clue that a mandate had to be paid for regardless of how it is ''defined''. They got themselves caught on capping the grants by arguing that no inflation had occurred - seems the lawyer had a bad habit of screaming about the ''Biden Inflation'' on Facebook... and then making a statement that no inflation had occurred. Then they got caught trying to explain how any of the State taxation is not redistributed with some donor towns and some receiver towns. I seem to remember reading the transcript asking if the money from business in a certain town are only return to that town rather than distributed to other towns. By the way, that was a suggestion that I placed into effect. State Senator Gallus took it up before the study committee determined the north country would see a strong drop in their share of the proceeds. The size of our State government is directly relate to the legislators... even now the LSRs have a whole bunch of mandates and modifications they want to make on education and other factors. Somehow I doubt they will come to the conclusion to just simplify the mandates. Just like the local boards add the ''extras'' because of emotion, the Legislature is not immune. How they raise the money - even though the same overall amount will actually be spent - will be interesting.