Laconia Tax Rate Released
 

Waterfront values jumped up.

Those with waterfront property will likely see their property tax go up 10%. A home on the water which was valued at $1 million is now likely calculated to be worth $1.15 million, resulting in the property tax going from $19,720 to $21,689.

From the Laconia Sun:

https://www.laconiadailysun.com/news...8c83c7654.html

Someone correct me if I am incorrect on this, but a similar valued 1.10-mil property in Meredith would get hit with a tax of about ten thousand dollars/year. That seems like a huge difference in waterfront taxes between Meredith and Laconia?

Add another reason to cross Laconia off the list of where to live.

Received my bill via email this morning and my value actually stayed the same 2020 to 2021 as a result I had a slight drop from 2020 due to the lower tax rate.


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Historically no. Meredith is about 73% as high as Laconia, not 50%

https://joeshimkus.com/NH-Tax-Rates-2020.aspx

Taxes go up because politicians and voters (if town meeting) spend more, that's the only reason. Increased property values have little to do with it.

Towns vote to spend money. They total up all the spending and come up with a levy. This is the total amount of money they need to collect. Then the figure out the assessed value of all the taxable properties, use the levy and the valuation to determine the tax rate, which is basically a multiplier, a meaningless number other than it's usefulness to apportion your share of the levy based on your percentage of the the total taxable property used.


Increased spending causes taxes to go up, not property values.

The only disclaimer is that if for some reason your property increases in value more than the town wide average increases your taxes may increase more than your neighbor, because your portion of the levy increased.

We need to stop this myth that increased assessments cause taxes to increase, that is not true. Every dollar of that increased tax has to be voted on by politicians and voters, who vote either directly via town meeting, or indirectly via the politicians they elect in non-town meeting municipalities.

Myth
 

I try to mostly ignore these threads that get all bothered by new assessments without understanding the relationship described above. In any event, the explanation by ITD is one of the clearest I've seen here and I urge everybody to read it again.

Laconia tax rate released
 

ITD is correct about the taxes. Several times in the not-so-distant-past, the whole subject of taxes, tax rates, assessments, etc., has been discussed to the point of absurdity on this Forum. What posters seem to forget is that every Town is different, and within each Town there are differences due to specific exemptions for age, veteran status, some health conditions, and several others. Generally speaking, throughout New Hampshire, local taxes are calculated in the same way, but making a comparison from Town to Town based on the bottom line isn't always an accurate comparison. It is accurate dollar for dollar, but not tax bill for tax bill. This is a good time of year NOT to be the town assessor or the town tax collector.

Okay, but when property values increase, I've always felt it sort of gives politicians/voters the idea they have more money without having to increase the tax rate. So, with this 'permission' they are less reluctant to curb the temptation to spend. It's a bit of smoke and mirrors but I think higher property values do have a role in the spending decisions that follow and in resultant future tax hikes. They don't directly 'cause' tax increases but they may 'encourage' additional spending. And once those expenditures occur, it's difficult to pull back when property values decrease. It's then that tax rates must increase.

It may have some psychological effect.

But I imagine that more property owners know the annual amount they pay than the tax rate. You make the check out for the amount so it becomes more ingrained.

There was a debate one time that if we moved town meetings to after the tax bill was paid, that a lot less voting to increase spending would occur. I think that psychological effect may have more of an impact, but so many don't vote that are qualified to do so, that I really am not sure.

That is true, except a substantial portion of the tax base is made up of non voting, non resident taxpayers. That is taxation without representation!

Only in some towns.
But the choice to become a resident or not is fully up to them.

It's inexcusable for a politician to not understand how these taxes work, but believe it or not, I've run into a couple.

Amen, but those of us with more than one home go into that with eyes fully open. Moultonboro does give a chance for non voting tax payers to hear and speak about the subject each year, and generally if you can prove you are a tax payer, you are allowed to speak at meetings.

Distributions of taxes
 

A minority of the tax rate is for the town operations, for example just under 30% in Moultonboro. The county, school and state education tax make up the rest. The tax rate impact of the new Education Freedom Accounts is still unknown, but could be a dramatic.

The EFA is a State expenditure.
Not really easily transferable to the local level.

The expenditure will most likely cost more at the State-level and put a damper on the cutting of State tax rates in various categories.

Actually it’s how stupid NH distributes taxes for schools that dominate the differences town to town. If you have a lot of kids in town you’ll pay higher taxes.

Exactly.

I have to put some garbage text in here to satisfy web site.

Doesn't actually pan out. Schools seeing a decline in student populations still see their school budgets going higher.

And some cities, like Franklin, see the reverse with the municipal side of the budget getting ahead of the curve.

All expenditures voted in by elected officials, or appointees of elected officials (worse).

I would disagree slightly. With no increase in spending, the tax burden in a town can increase for individuals IF their assessment goes up compared to others. This area is prone to this effect because of Lake Winnipesaukee. If lakefront is selling like crazy and prices are up but not property away from the lake, lakefront owners will then be hit with a higher portion of the overall tax bill.

It's actually pretty weird because the tax rate (per thousand) can go DOWN because town costs/total town valuation (up due to lakefront increases) is overall LOWER. The NON lakefront owner who saw little increase in valuation may actually see their total drop a little or stay about the same. The lakefront owner who saw their $1M home increase in value by $100K (10%) will owe more because of that increase, (valuation x per $1K rate).

As stated, the exact amount can vary widely town to town.

I suspect that some town officials know an increase is coming and increase spending a bit to bury it in the overall increases in valuations. When complaints come it they can say "It's because of the increase in lakefront valuations".

As to "taxation without representation", it's a canard. You have a vote where you have your residence. THAT is where you are most impacted by the result of the town & state policies. How would you like it if huge XYZ corporation moved into your town and and "voted" to slash school, police, fire, and road spending to save themselves money? Or all the lakefront owners did the same thing? The voting structure protects the town funding.

No one is forcing you to buy land here or keep the property and the "vote where you reside" rules are the common way to deal with voting rights in most of the country. This is not new; you (or your ancestors) probably knew the way it worked when you bought the property.

Not always
 

That is not always the case. If your New Hampshire waterfront property is valued significantly higher than your 'primary residence' then THAT is where you will be most impacted. When you couple that with the $10,000 cap on real estate tax deductions the tax impact can be significant. Property taxes paid on personal use property, second homes and vacation homes, while still deductible as itemized deductions, are subject to the $10,000 limitation.

Yes, everyone knew the rules when they bought (or inherited) but the tax law change in 2017 made a big difference. For example: If the combined real estate taxes from your two homes is $30,000, the 2017 law change took away a $20,000 deduction. If you are in a 30% tax bracket that change cost you $6,000.

Yes, it's a nice problem to have (until you look at how the government spends "your" money!) but it still impacts a lot of people.

When I say impacted, I mean whether you have decent schools, police, fire, roads, library, and dozens of other services that could be voted away by seasonal residents to save a buck. WE live here and it's not easy to pack up our lives and move. Seasonal people only have a house here. Yeah, sometimes towns overspend. But residents pay for that as well and resist it. Some of these costs are related to the flood of seasonal people and their "needs".

The ''government'' spending the property taxes would be the local voters for the most part. We create the budgets, approve the budgets, and approve the raising of the taxes to cover the budget expenditures.

Pretty sure that President Trump, and many of the politicians that ran at that time were forthright with their feelings surrounding the SALT taxes. So while tax laws are always changing... anyone paying attention could see how that was going to go.

How does Alton compare tax wise?

New
 

Newly released $11.38.

Dave

Just opened my bill for half year. $1240 increase!


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Don't forget, the June bill is only an estimate and is half of what last year's (2020) actual tax was. When the Dec bill comes out, they know the actual rate. So maybe you didn't really have a $1240 increase?

That is one way to look at it


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And it's still not enough... this is where your tax increases originate, not in rising property values. Hold onto your wallets Laconia.

https://www.laconiadailysun.com/news...375271d9d.html

The county budget is going to impact all of Belknap County.... Laconia's tax increases are tied to poor decisions....

Decisions like the Colonial Theater rehab... then the City sold the condos to Rusty McClear for a song.... (did not go out for bid) who in turn sold 3 of them to Mayor Hosmer for ZERO profit! Lets not forget the backdoor deal to give up 18 downtown parking spaces to make this all happen! The family that owns Fit Focus (The old parking garage is their roof) also had handshake deals to buy some of the Colonial condos...

Next up for us Laconia taxpayers is that boondoggle of the parking garage! The City Council & Mayor Hosmer want to bump 6M+ into rehabbing a poorly built 45 year old building that buy another 20 years of functionality! The better option would be to spend the $10M and build a new garage that we can get 35-40 years out of!

Woodsy

But you would need to also solve the old parking garage problem... so that is additional costs for demolition and rehab.

Labor inflation is something that we expect in a highly vibrant economy with more jobs than employees to fill them.