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New Hampshire Starts 'View' Tax
New Hampshire property owners are outraged at government efforts to tax them for their views of neighboring land. Tom Thompson, a New Hampshire tree farmer, represents the opinions of many protestors. "I object on principal,” he told the News Telegraph, a British Web site, "to paying a property tax for a view of something I don’t own and can’t control.” The dreaded "view tax” is not unheard of elsewhere, but is having drastic effects on New Hampshire landowners because the state has no sales or income tax. The resulting emphasis on property taxes makes increased property valuation particularly onerous for landowners. Three factors seem to have created a "perfect storm” for the current public discontent:
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Defenders of the property valuation point out that there is no such thing as a "view tax,” but only a "view factor” used in computing total property value for tax purposes.
It is common practice to take "view” into account in determining property value, regardless of whether the determination is made for commercial, legal, or governmental purposes.
But, it’s an inherently inexact calculus. New Hampshire has no written guidelines for comparing views. Instead, Avitar Associates of New England, a private company contracted to provide property valuations for many local governments throughout the state, has relied on intuition and a "View Manual” to compare different properties.
Gary J. Roberge, chief executive officer of Avitar Associates, admits that it is a highly subjective process. "I hate saying that it’s subjective,” he told the Washington Post, "but it is.”
Thomas Holmes, assessor for Conway, New Hampshire, agrees. Apparently, he relies on intuition in assessing a view’s effect on property value. "It’s more of an ‘I know it when I see it’ kind of thing,” he told the Post. Still, Roberge explains that view does clearly make a difference in property value. "View,” he told the News-Telegraph, "explains why one property may sell for $100,000 more than an otherwise similar one.” "What's different this year,” he said, "is that we have itemized the view factor and some people aren’t happy with that.” David Bischoff, chairman of the Board of Selectman in Orford, is one of those people. Bischoff owns a one-room cabin with no electricity, no running water, no phone service, and no driveway. In his case, the "view factor” led to a property valuation of over $200,000 by state property assessors. He will likely be billed $4,000 a year for property taxes on a cabin that cost only $9,000 to build. He told the News-Telegraph that if the valuation is upheld at an appeal, he will tear the cabin down. But before he does that, he tried using his power as chairman of the town council to refuse to certify the valuations. On Monday, however, the state Board of Tax and Land Appeals ordered the council to use the contested 2005 evaluations, saying they were fairer than the 1997 assessments the council had been using. Bischoff has yet to comment on the order. Thomson, the tree farming son of former anti-tax New Hampshire governor Meldrim Thomson, worries about the long-term effect of the view tax. "The result,” he told the News Telegraph, "will be that landowners will decide they don’t want to pay the tax and sell their land to housing developers. Then the views will be lost forever.”
Editor's note:
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