It is shocking to see how lawmakers callously disregard citizens’ financial burdens by drawing more money out of their pockets, whether it be directly or indirectly. Allowing local communities to determine utility property values is just the latest example of lawmakers seeing our money as taxes.
Because local communities determine the utility property values, similar property is assessed unevenly and can dramatically increase town by town in any given year. If my property taxes doubled in a year, I would be livid. So why is it fair to do this to utility companies? Utilities don’t pay the property taxes, their customers do, in utility rates.
My monthly bill is already painful enough. And when utility property taxes increase, utility companies have to pass along those costs to their customers. It’s not just the residents of that town paying those extra costs – it’s me and my wife, our neighbors, our friends and residents across the utility’s service territory. We are essentially subsidizing every community that over-assesses and taxes utilities through our utility bills.
House Bill 324 will help by creating a uniform, statewide assessing standard; communities would use the assessments from the New Hampshire Department of Revenue Administration for valuing and taxing utility property. The DRA already does this work to collect state utility property tax – why do the same job twice?
I fervently hope that HB 324 will succeed and become a law. And I hope that for once, reason and decency will prevail.
W. RICHARD DOERRE
Alton Bay