questions to ponder

[Geoff]

Vermont can keep the damn town of rich,crybaby taxpayers.As far as i'm concerned,this NH citizen thinks they should try to ceceed to California,cuz I dont want thier problems.

California has a very low property tax rate thanks to Proposition Something-or-Other. Us crybaby Killington vacation home owners who have seen our property taxes quintuple in the last 5 years would be totally happy to pay those tax rates. It blows me away that the tax rates in Portsmouth, New Hampshire where there is no state income tax and no state sales tax are lower than my tax rate at Killington.

 

[Geoff]

Is the $349 season pass for Killington or all ASC resorts? When did you have to buy it? And was there a limit, like the 25,000 at Mammoth?

The $349 Bronze pass works at all the ASC eastern resorts. 14 blackout days that include Thanksgiving weekend, Xmas-New Years week, MLK weekend, Presidents Weekend, and the Saturday after Presidents weekend. The cutoff was late August. They also had a Silver Pass that cut out 3 of those blackout days for an extra $50 and a Gold Pass at $600 with no blackout days. They kept selling those passes at a slightly increased price beyond August. I think they stopped selling Bronze passes in late-September and finally sold out of Silver passes at $429 a few weeks ago. They claimed there was a limit but did not ever say what it was. Given their financial standing, it's hard to imagine that they'd turn down customers. I doubt we'll hear how many they sold until their SEC filing.

 

[Tony Crocker]

Proposition 13 was passed by voter initiative in 1978 in California. It limits property taxes to 1% of market value, and also limits annual increases to 2%. A full reassessment to current market value only occurs upon sale.

The 1% makes sense in view of our residential real estate values, which are now approaching $400 per sq. ft. in in typical upper middle class suburbs of L.A.

The 2% increase provision is more debatable, particularly with respect to business property. The long term effect of declining property taxes has been to make the schools and some local governments completely dependent upon Sacramento for funding.

We also have very high income and sales taxes here. Excessive dependence upon volatile income tax revenues, particularly capital gains during the dot com era, brought on the recent state budget crisis and recall of Gov. Gray Davis. Tax burden overall is slightly above average compared to other states.

The local governments brought Proposition 13 upon themselves by pocketing and spending the windfall they received in the mid-1970's runup in real estate values. Which sounds like what you're experiencing at Killington now.

 

[Geoff]

The local governments brought Proposition 13 upon themselves by pocketing and spending the windfall they received in the mid-1970's runup in real estate values. Which sounds like what you're experiencing at Killington now.

The soaring property taxes in Vermont resort towns were caused more by instituting a state-wide school property tax than by rising property values. Property values have risen roughly 2x in the last 5 years. Surprisingly low given how much property prices have soared in metro-Boston and metro-NYC. The base tax rate for vacation homes and commercial property in resort towns has risen by 2.5x with 100% of that money going to the state to subsidize other towns. Single family homes that are a primary residence get a little bit of a break but they've been hit hard, too. Vermont also has a stiff sales tax and a stiff state income tax so taxpayers are getting it from all sides.

Businesses get hit even harder since the state corporate income tax is even stiffer than the personal income tax, they pay the higher commercial state-wide school tax on property, they pay very high employment costs like workman's comp and health insurance, and it's very expensive and time-consuming to build any commercial property due to Act 250 environmental law. Unless the state gives a company big tax concessions like they did to IBM and Bombardier, there's a huge disincentive to locate any business in Vermont.

If you wanted a public policy where the majority of your residents are poor and dependent on state subsidy to survive, this is how you'd achieve it. It's little surprise that Vermont elects a socialist Congressman.

 

[NHpowderhound]

I may have been a bit excessive when I said "damn town of rich,crybaby taxpayers"
Please accept my apologies.
However I still hope the town can reconcile with the state of Vermont.
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*))NHPH