Jim Tanner is a retired IBM manager who lives in Concord.

In 2019 I ran a total tax burden comparison between Concord and my previous residence in Cambridge, Mass. I ran the comparison again in 2023. The results are surprising. The tax burden in New Hampshire is between $3,500 to $4,000 more per year than it would have been in Massachusetts. I did as complete a comparison as I could, considering: property, dividend, vehicle, income, trash, sales, and room and meals tax. I keep extensively detailed records and know exactly on what and where I spend every dollar each year.

With no sales or income tax in New Hampshire, how could this possibly be? The room and meals tax (at 8.5% vs Mass. sales tax at 6.5%) was a little over $300 more in spending in New Hampshire this year, and the dividend tax, after two senior discounts, on dividends and interest of $25,000, will be about $1,100. The real culprit is the property tax. My previous home in Cambridge (city value listing of $1,038,000 in 2023) has a property tax of $3,324. My home in Concord (city value $554,000, about ½ of the Cambridge valuation) is taxed at $17,989, a difference of $11,408. This overcomes $5,800 in Mass. income tax and $1,674 of sales tax I would have been liable for in Mass. sales tax eligible spending. Cambridge property tax is $5.36 per thousand of valuation. Concord’s is $26.86 per thousand. If I had rolled over all of the proceeds of the Cambridge home into a similarly priced home here, the property tax would be $27,880.

I bought a new vehicle in 2023 with a retail value of $36,719. The tax burden in Mass., which includes: sales tax, excise tax, and registration was $3,333. The New Hampshire burden was only $704. That is still not enough to offset the property tax differential. Next year there is no car sales tax ($2,386), and the excise drops, and continues to drop each year, a savings of $275 next year.

New Hampshire is not a low tax state. It is a haven for the wealthy who have their property taxed, but unlimited income, capital gains, and spending, including on luxury goods, is untouched. It may be argued that the poor also benefit from this arrangement. But they do not have a lot of discretionary income to spend, and food and clothing are often exempt from sales taxes. Rent needs to cover the landlord’s tax burden.

It can be argued that Concord is not a fair comparison to Cambridge, Mass. That city offers a generous owner residential exemption of $407,823 and has a strong industrial base that covers 2/3 of the city taxes. This is done intentionally to keep people living in the city. A better comparison may be with the suburban town of Newton which has a rate of $10.18 per $1,000 of valuation and property values are similar to those in Cambridge. The tax in 2023 on a $1.1 million home in Newton is $10,587. In 2023, including the new vehicle tax, that made Concord cheaper by about $3,000. In other years it would be roughly even. If you could find a $554,000 home in Newton with a tax of $5,640, that would tilt the balance again to Mass.

Another example of New Hampshire’s gift to the wealthy is the phase out, entirely in 2025, of the dividend tax. After various deductions, it is currently a 5% tax on your dividend and interest income. My contribution, as mentioned earlier, is about $1,100. The less well-off do not pay it or even know about it. Those of means should contribute to the general good. The revenue projection of $135 million this year could certainly be put to good use, education funding for example, in future years.

There are certainly advantages to living in New Hampshire. To declare that low taxation is part of “The New Hampshire Advantage” for our middle and upper-middle-income citizens, and perhaps the less wealthy as well, is disingenuous. The property tax burden more than offsets the advantage of no sales or income tax. If not changed to a fairer system, where the wealthy make a more appropriate tax contribution, the current tax schema should be made clear to all of New Hampshire’s residents.