Quote:
Originally Posted by The Real BigGuy
I have no problem paying taxes on my summer residence but, either let me vote on how the money is spent or let the portion of the population that uses the majority of the services pay thier proportional share.
I spend maybe a total of 50 days at my summer residence. Not only am I part time resident that doesn't send my kids to the local school, use the library, dump, etc. I live on an island so I don't have roads to plow and the fire department will only be successful in saving the property next to mine if I have a fire. Why am I carrying the same or greater load than the family that lives here full time?
To me, it comes down to one thing - a portion of the full time residents of NH (I'll admit, not all of them) want someone else to foot the bill. "No income tax!" "No sales tax!" Instead, "let's put a surtax on people's vacation home most of them are from out of state." Let's rasie the waterfront property valuations and lower the inland valuations. Most of the waterfront people are from out of state." "Let's let other towns in the state pay for schooling my children."
Some one once said, "There is no free lunch." I gues the message missed the granit state. One day this chicken will come home to roost!
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You are paying based on value, like the valuation process or not. Putting the valuations aside (because we all know that the only way to truly know what your house is worth is to sell it), your tax rate is not based on the level of service you receive or use but instead on the level that is available. It is no different than the elderly folks that live in the suburbs surrounding Boston, they have no kids in school but are paying for new schools (like Newton's $197M monstrosity).
The issue is that the real big guy in the sky is not going to create any new waterfront on Winnipesaukee. Frankly, I think we will see more and more people priced off the lake so that eventually only the uber-rich will be able to afford to do so. It is really no different than what has happened to many NH residents who once owned waterfront property.
You are right though, we don't want an income tax or a sales tax.