Washburn: Feltes-Ames Tax Bill Should be Rejected

By Robert Washburn

The late and infamous Wilbur Mills once described the bedrock of democrat tax philosophy as “Don’t tax you don’t tax me tax the guy behind the tree.” It has since been enhanced with envy economics.

In blue states such as California and Illinois they enacted taxes on the super achievers. Apparently it’s contagious, because the Feltes-Ames tax bill, 634-FN-A, not only will attempt the same but trots out the shop warn pejorative of “closing loopholes.”

In order to enhance the legal and financial services community’s trusts were exempted from the interest and dividends tax, if the beneficiaries were New Hampshire residents they would be taxed on distributions. The sophomoric estimate that this new tax would yield $100 million doesn’t compute as the trusts would simply relocate to Delaware, South Dakota or some other favorable tax location.

The Feltes-Ames bill would also for the first time tax capital gains. The most current taxable transaction would be commercial real estate. How many times does the state expect to tax the same transaction? First there is the real estate transfer tax, and then the business profits tax and now a third tax the capital gains tax.
Higher taxes and bigger government, not!

Robert Washburn is a CPA and former Concord City Councilor.