The slow-motion property tax revolt that began with local and then coordinated statewide efforts to cap local tax increases is taking a new, insidious and absurd form. Some residents of age-restricted housing are banding together to lobby for a statewide property tax abatement because, they argue, they have no children in school and receive fewer municipal services than other residents.
Last week, the Monitor's Margot Sanger-Katz reported that when the effort's organizer, a recent Massachusetts arrival living in Litchfield, put out the call, roughly 100 people in senior citizen complexes gathered to seek changes in tax policy.
"We simply don't draw on the same amount of town services that a family of four that has an acre and a half does," John Poulos told Sanger-Katz.
"As a group of people right now, we feel like the people in Boston must have felt when they threw the tea in the bay. We're paying taxes and we're not getting anything for them," said another.
The selfishness and myopia of the people seeking this benefit at the expense of their neighbors is hard to stomach.
Depending on their income level, senior citizens in almost every New Hampshire community already get a tax break. Many of the retirees attracted to New Hampshire didn't come simply to savor the state's fine quality of life, and they certainly didn't come for the weather. Other than Alaska, New Hampshire is the only state that has no sales or income tax, so retirement income goes farther here. Seniors who earn more than a few thousand dollars in interest and dividend payments do pay a tax on that income, but so does everyone else.
Compared to younger residents, senior citizens do less for the local economy, though they often have higher incomes than the young workers with families who are struggling to pay their taxes. Household expenditures fall steadily from age 54 onward. Past age 75, the cohort's spending rate is less than half that of middle-aged residents. People spend more in their retirement on health care and transportation but less on entertainment, alcohol and tobacco and just about everything else.
The heavy reliance by senior citizens on Medicare and Medicaid raises health care costs for those with private insurance. Since neither federal program pays the full cost of health care, health care providers shift as much of the difference as they can to other payers.
Now, about that oldest of plaints, that senior citizens have no children in school so they should pay less in property taxes. Please. People who never had children pay property taxes their whole lives.
When longtime New Hampshire residents move to age-restricted housing, at least in normal markets when houses can be easily bought and sold, it increases pressure on school budgets.
Big homes that for years or even decades held one or two people are typically purchased by families with children. That generational change is a bigger factor in school enrollments than almost any other. Similarly, the seniors who downsize and move to New Hampshire open up family housing in their former communities.
The retirees seeking this sweetener sent their children to school, usually at the expense of other taxpayers, and now they want a break for themselves, not based on their income, but simply because they are in their golden years. The idea is preposterous.
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First comment. Not all seniors in NH are from MA!!! Unfortunately the reporter for the Monitor chose to pick up on those two comments and left out a lot of additional info she was given. Second. We are expecting to help fund the schools. That is not the issue here. If you did a survey of Litchfield seniors I feel that you would see that the majority voted this spring for the new school. And for those of you who have mentioned that some towns are giving a break in taxes to the seniors? To be eligible for this break you have to be almost at poverty level. Now isn't that a shame.
Taxes are one of the costs for living in a civilized society.
If you don't like the costs, stop collecting social security, stop your doctor from billing medicare, get your car off the road and buy a horse, when you have a stroke or heart attack don't bother calling an ambulance...deal with it.
We all agree everyone is entitled to an opinion. But why does the editor think expressing an opinion is strengthened by name-calling? Myopic? Selfish? Absurd? ...hard to stomach? It's all right there in print. Grow up!
The editorial should have mentioned something that was reported in the same story in which Poulos's comments were included: senior age-restricted housing can INCREASE the tax burden on communities.
This is from Margot Sanger-Katz's Sept. 29 news story:
"Peter Francese, an Exeter demographer who has written extensively on age-restricted housing, said that the group - as with many towns - is thinking too simply about the ways elderly communities use tax dollars. His research, he said, has shown that increasing the proportion of elderly residents has actually increased the tax burden for many communities. Older people drive up the cost of health insurance for school districts through their use of Medicare, soften the commercial tax base by shopping less than younger people and increase commuting - and the need for road expansion - by exhausting the affordable housing supply in places where young people work."
In case you missed it, you can read it here:
http://www.cmonitor.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080929/FRONTPAGE/80...
That's a silly argument to make, but I was waiting for someone to bring it up.
If they attended public schools, their parents (most likely) would have been paying taxes at that time that went to the public schools. Then those now seniors would have had children and would have been paying taxes again into the system. Now their children are grown and gone, and they still are paying taxes into the school system.
How many years do you think people should have to pay for their "public education" - and what about those who did not use the public school system?
Its sad that they want to trash a system they probably used themselves. Chances are most of them did since 90% of kids go to public schools. Go back to MA and pay a sales, income and all the other taxes they have there. You moved to NH so you could get your social security and pension tax free and now you want a free ride on property taxes too! I'm sorry I have no sympathy for you. Pay your taxes like everyone else.
some of them do a lot of volunteer work that helps a lot of people . there is one named henry burns in franklin that feeds 200 or more people per week. another ester cain that runs the food pantry. and another that runs the thrift shop. someday the writer will be a senior too.
Is there any difference? Candidate for U.S. Senate Shaheen today has her neighbors subsidize her property taxes by having it in current use. Is she paying her share of school cost? Libertarian Candidate ffor U.S. Senate Ken Blevens
It is not enough that these seniors get discounts at almost every retail business in state. Now they demand it and tax breaks too. They already get an extra discount from the feds for being over 65 when they file their taxes, they have no kids to support, most of them have paid off their mortages and have little to worry about expense wize. They have so much free time they get themselves elected to state office so they can introduce bills that will further enhance their financial well being and limit spending if it doesn't affect them. I did sam MOST not all. But these individuals making further demands who are moving up from taxachusetts (because they can't change things there) should just go back !
"The selfishness and myopia of the people seeking this benefit at the expense of their neighbors is hard to stomach."
This sentence could have been the entire editorial. Its sums up the point perfectly.
Please close down Rt 93 !!!!