Business owner being driven out by property taxes

[Russell Kanning]

The only way to try to keep property taxes down in your town is to control spending. That means going to deliberative session (in SB2 towns) or town meeting and VOTING for fiscally responsible people who will keep an eye on the tax dollars.

1000's of people have been doing this in NH .... and they have kept them lower than other places .... but the end result has been $13,000/kid in jailschools and 2-3% taxes in many places.

I think there is a better way.

[Russell Kanning]

If they try to over assess her, she can file an abatement.

It would not take much for her house in Peterborough to be assessed at $500,000 and with a say 3% tax each year ..... hello $15,000/year. That is not affordable for many people. If the houses were valued at lower amounts ... they would just raise the %. She might be getting a particular raw deal, but 1000's in NH are in the same situations.

[penguins4me]

If the state can consider ownership of property of any sort a privilege (since the power to do such has not been granted to the fed.gov), then the founder's definiton of "liberty" must not be what I think it means.

An state-mandated artifical obligation to compel work? Do you know what happens to humans who don't work? Generally, they die, usually from starvation, absent a typically state-sponsored welfare system. What could possibly be gained by implementing an artificial obligation on top of the natural obligations?

Your statement, "which COMPELS them to labor for what defines their very existence - to exist is to occupy land somewhere", makes absolutely no sense to me. I exist and occupy space no matter where I am (house, farm, jail cell), and who are you, or anyone else, to demand that a person who worked for and bought a nice piece of farmland deviate from his dream of living a completely self-sufficient lifestyle, living off his own land, and ONLY off his own land?
The only way that makes syntactic sense is if you honestly believe that there is not enough land in the USA to provide all those who wish to buy land some of their own.

Define this "socially created economic rent". Rent for what? Where's the "social value" in land which takes a 4x4 and two hours travel from the nearest paved road to get to?

How, exactly, are property rights strengthened by continually taxing a possession?

-edit: clarification

[Lex]

penguins4me, PLEASE, I beg of you, do not cause the opening of the ultimate can of worms. Over the last (three years that I can remember) we have had hundreds of pages worth of arguments with FrankChodorov (and many of his aliases, on this and other forums (TheClaireFiles, FreeTalkLive, FreeStateProject)) amounting to nothing more than a ton of wasted time.

[lordmetroid]

The original 13 state owns the land inside their borders. The other states are a little bit different as the expansion into the west was made by the federal government mainly.

[Russell Kanning]

they own a home in Peterborough and a office in south Keene.
We met with them for a couple hours last night.
The wife's idea is to walk across NH like granny D did across america.

[cathleeninnh]

So she is choosing publicity route. She can "raise" awareness of the property tax inequities and usher in alternatives. 

Cathleen

[FrankChodorov]

She can do what you are doing and know that every year the town liens the taxes and those liens show on credit reports as a negative impact. After three years the municipality takes the property.  It is what it is.  Property owners pay for everything in the State of NH.  Not having a sales or personal income tax is still the offset.

Cathleen's Ed called it ethnic cleansing.  The bastards call it gentrification.  Smaller pink house might be a solution.  No one wants to be forced to sell.

I know old Yankees that have taken down parts of houses and additions to temporarily lower their tax bills.  Taxes and Death.... 

what is the difference between placing a lien on the property and taking out a home equity loan on the appreciating land values?

when the property gets sold the liens get paid off...the home equity loan is just paying the "lien" off immediately rather than at a sale.

when the homeowner decides to sell the home equity just like a mortgage gets paid off.

[penguins4me]

While trying to avoid further openings of cans of worms:

Some people prefer living without a cloud of debt or other such obligations hanging over their heads. If some choose to, that's fine - it's their choice. People should also have the option to live free, in this case debt free.

[Russell Kanning]

They are not prepared to simply not pay the property taxes they don't want to pay.

We can also do a voluntary services style barnraising activity at their home this summer. They need to do some roofing. I can feel a party coming.

[Lloyd Danforth]

Improvements might raise their taxes

I would think that in towns like Peterborough there a lot of victims like these people. Has she tried to organize others in her town, particularly the elderly on fixed incomes trying to keep the homes they were born in?

[FrankChodorov]

Improvements might raise their taxes

I would think that in towns like Peterborough there a lot of victims like these people. Has she tried to organize others in her town, particularly the elderly on fixed incomes trying to keep the homes they were born in?

all towns have an elderly exemption program...

they should also offer a lien program to be paid at title transfer (death or sale)

[FrankChodorov]

she could take out a reverse mortgage and payoff all of her debt interest deferred while she was alive for the remainder of her life

yes, in essence this is like a home equity loan...

[Russell Kanning]

I would think that in towns like Peterborough there a lot of victims like these people. Has she tried to organize others in her town, particularly the elderly on fixed incomes trying to keep the homes they were born in?

People are mostly too scared or embarrassed she said. But I think this is how she wants to do it.
We already have taxpayer groups ... but they have only done so much. We need something more .... and outside the system. She has done everything possible in their system and has seen only small results.

[KurtDaBear]

Everything I read still places NH in the bottom half dozen states in overall taxes per family.

In California I pay about $2200 in property taxes on a half-million-$ house, but when I was in Keene last fall, I learned that I could buy one of the premier historic mansions in that town for the same money--6000-sq.-ft. on a half-acre lot, carriage house, black wrought iron-fence, two blocks from the town center--so there's a big difference in what constitutes a "half-million-$" house from state to state.

Furthermore, the last year I worked full time, I paid more than $6,600 in state income taxes, then had the pleasure of paying 8% sales tax on anything else I bought, including $1,072 on the purchase of a $13,000 economy car (and that didn't include a couple hundred $$ more for plates and registration).

Since the entire income tax and the majority of the sales tax is paid directly to the state, the state has central control over the bulk of tax monies for all Calif. taxing entities.  Local governments are forced to beg (lobby) to get a decent share of money back, but many find it easier to push constant elections for special local taxes and assessments onto their citizens.

At least in NH, you have strong local control over collections and expenditures.  In addition, a person's house is generally reflective of his income/purchasing power, so the ability to buy a property should match the ability to pay property taxes in most cases.  Further, what have traditionally been considered the most basic of government services--fire and police protection, streets and sidewalks, etc.--are directly associated with property ownership.

If you go to other taxes, you will sadly learn that the highest cost of an income or sales tax in NH will be your loss of local control over government and its revenues, not your loss of dollars.