Potential Tax Hike?
 

Read an interesting article this afternoon and I thought I'd share it with you all. It has me concerned for a number of reasons, most of which should be blantently obvious.

Bizer has unoffically set the number of islands on the Lake at 365. Yet others have claimed that nearly 270 of those island are unhabitable and therefor ought to be discounted. This controversy and debate has been around for ages yet never seemed to matter until now. Just last month, the National Geospatial Agency declared that the island count officially sits at 259. Over 100 islands were essentially wiped off the map.

Now here are my two main concerns:
1) Discrediting over 100 islands is a slap in the face to this great Lake. With such rich history and a storied past, erasing these islands is essentially erasing the great legacy this Lake has created.

2) The NH "View Tax" relies heavily on waterfrontage. The 2006 bill uses a formula that takes into account the percentage of waterfront a house has. I'm not 100% sure of all the details but it something like you're waterfrontage divided by the total waterfrontage available. A little known fact about this formula is that it counts islands. With the number of islands being cut now considerably, so does the total number of waterfrontage on the lake. In turn, the percentage of homeowner waterfrontage will sky rocket resulting in a higher tax.

Now I'm not sure if anything has been proposed yet in Concord, but one would imagine that given our states enourmous deficit, those slimey lawmakers are fully aware of this oppertunity to raise our taxes.

Does anyone else have any insight on this or any ideas as to how we can stop it?

What in the world are you talking about?

Not recognizing some tiny clumps of lands as "islands" is a discredit to the lake?

Do you have a link or some reference to the article you were reading? I can't tell from your post what the real issue is that you seem to be worked up about.

Potential Tax Hike?
 

All this being said, does this mean that if I build my dream waterfront McMansion on one of those 100 unhabitable islands, that the State of NH, would not tax my property ? :laugh:

I have a feeling that number would drop to 99 real quick ! :)

BD

Bizer said what?
 

If you look at Bizer.com you'll find that in 2006 Bizer calculated the number of islands to be 253 of which 132 were deemed to be inhabitable (i.e. >1/4 acre and hence potentially able to support a septic system). Only 73 are 2 acres or more. There's a lot of detail on the site about the research behind those numbers. Might be worth a read.

http://www.bizer.com/winislan.htm

So.... what does this have to do with taxes?

Are you concerned that town assessors will make adjustments based on Bizer charts?

"view tax" or "view factor"
 

Thanks ,Blue Pig, for bringing this back. I think your referring to a couple of bills in '07' that died. One actually stated ten different ways assessors can formulate this tax' the other was the licencing of tax assessors that 6000 tax payers requested the committee to support to no avail.
Your info on total waterfront sq. footage of a taxable community and islands, being divided by owned waterfront footage I think is just one of the many absurd, out of thin air formulas there using for view tax/factor to extract more $$$ by unlicensed assessors in this state. The thinking that a view from a distance should be calculated the same as waterfront/view just doesn't make sense. Avitar Associates of New England actually has a "view factor" manual. As quoted by Gary J. Roberge, chief executive officer of Avitar Associates, admits that it is a highly subjective process.
"I hate saying that it’s subjective,” he told the Washington Post, "but it is.”
Below is a link to HB 804 and HB 761 back in '07'.

http://www.whitemtridgerunners.com/w...RR-viewtax.htm

Many, many, many years ago I had a friend who had Summer home on lake. And part of his property was an island. Basically a rock with some growth on it. My memory fades but I think he told me that the town assessed the island at $30,000. He went to town and complained about the islands value. To him it was not worth $30,000 or anything for that matter. He advised the town that he was going to donate the island to some non-taxable entity and then the town woulld get nothing in taxes for the island. They did lower the value of the island. This was long time ago but this is what I remember.

I believe Blue Pig had tongue firmly planted in cheek, pointing out how absurb the state legislature is when it comes to taxing everything in sight.

Even if serious, the total perimeter of the 100 smallest islands is only a tiny fraction of the total shoreline. I suspect that Bizer knows the answer from his database.

Perhaps. I honestly couldn't make out what the exact point of his post was.

That's what I was thinking as well.

Assume they are an average of .20 acres (probably a high estimate).

43,560 * .20 = 8,712 sqft (average size of one of the small islands).

Assuming these little islands are generally round(ish), their "shoreline" should be roughly 51 feet.

So, in total, these 100 little islands would have less than 1 mile of combined shoreline.

Other stats put the Winnipesaukee shoreline at 288 miles, so 1 mile as a percentage of 288 miles, would be about .3%. Doesn't seem like much to get worked up over :)

I might have simply been an innocent case of holiday weekend margarita excess.

"The Beer Barrel Polka"
 

Innocent?? Simple Excess??!!

Let's be honest, here. More like "Roll Out the Barrel"?:laugh:

Ok...now you got me watching U Tube videos of Polkas! Have you ever heard of the Marie Polka....I just did! :D

Brk-Int,
I am so happy to know I am not the only one who thinks life is more interesting with a few calculations sprinkled in. Thanks