Yesterday my wife and I went up to the lakes region of New Hampshire in the central part of the state to attend the League of New Hampshire Craftsmen 77th annual craftsman's fair, held in Newbury, NH. This is a nice event each year where local artists and craftsmen get to show off their stuff,and there are workshops where you can see blacksmiths, glass-blowers, clay potters, stone masons and wood carvers all do their thing. Against my better judgment, we ended up bringing home two wooden gnomes. I once swore to myself that, in defense of my self-respect and all around dignity, I would never, under any circumstances, own a garden gnome, but my wife doesn't ask for much and doesn't have any expensive jewelry expectations like some wives, so how could I refuse her? In my defense, they technically aren't garden gnomes anyway, but I digress.
One unexpected and fun thing we found there was that the ski lifts were still working. This whole event takes place on the site of what is, in winter months, a booming ski resort. What follows would actually be obvious to most normal people, but I think for a living and therefore do not feel I should have to think on weekends. I was genuinely surprised. We took the ski lift up, and were treated to the sight of the surprisingly narrow ski trail passing by below, hedged in it seemed by thick forest. We waved embarrassed to other riders passing in the opposite direction, and watched as the hard wood trees gave way to evergreens and smaller wild flowers as our mobile seat took us up to the summit. It was a fun ride, and after walking around a bit, we got on the return ride. This is where the embarrassingly obvious bit kicks in; it just hadn't occurred to me that, though we were at a ski resort (albeit in August), that we were on the side of a freakin' mountain. The view on the way back was stunning, a panorama of the entire Lake Sunapee lakes region. This region in the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains was once cut by glaciers which later melted at the end of the last ice age, leaving dozens of small, beautiful resort lakes between the hills. I was so taken aback with this sudden picture of beauty that I fumbled with my camera and failed to take a film, instead just barely snapping the picture above. It was a powerful reaffirmation of why I live in this state.
However, that brings us to today's topic, which is that view. New Hampshire is indeed an extremely scenic state, particularly in the autumn but all year round. For someone like me, this state is a bounty of beauty, and no matter which direction I head, I always manage to find something that takes my breath away. However, if you're not careful, you may end up regretting it; in at least some instances, you may find yourself paying for that view. Literally.
As we've explored in a previous post, New Hampshire -- the Live Free or Die state -- does not have either an income tax or a sales tax. As we also explored in that previous post, however, the Piper always gets his due, and the advantage of not having the state pick your pockets is countered by the disadvantage of having your local towns more than make up the difference by taxing the bejeezus out of you. Property taxes in NH are often absurdly high. Desperate to support an increasingly middle class lifestyle, these towns -- which receive very little in state funding, since the state government itself has very little income -- must pay for their schools, roads, bridges, building maintenance, snow plowing, etc. etc. etc. more directly by relying on their residents. In some growing towns, with restrictions on how much they can raise taxes each year, they have become particularly creative, and one by-product of this creativity was, in 2005, the View Tax.
Nope. Not kidding. There is a view tax in New Hampshire, which basically says that if you own a home with a pleasant view, yer gonna pay for it because, according to assessors, that view adds value to your home (even if that value often can't really be realized in a sale of the home). This has created a situation where farms owned for generations were suddenly getting hit in 2005 with tax increases of thousands of dollars because, if you ignored that powerful stench of cow dung, their grazing fields had a nice view. The local media trotted out some of the most absurd stories, such as that of retired engineer John Chandler whose long-owned home on a hillside in the White Mountains -- with apparently a nice vista view -- was hit with a huge "view tax" increase, despite the fact that John Chandler is legally blind and can't enjoy the view he apparently must now pay for. In reality this is a story about a state with a traditionally sparse and fairly homogeneous and self-sufficient population struggling to come to grips with rapid population growth and change, so that large chunks of southern and coastal New Hampshire are really transforming into mere suburbs of Boston. An outdated tax structure is creating these absurd situations, but until Concord decides to fix things, well, be careful about that view from your front room window; it may cost you plenty....
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