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9% NH Lift Ticket tax - now, back to our show

1dog

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Understand why last thread was closed, but fascinating back and forth.

Where are the examples that raising taxes creates significantly more government revenue without damaging business?
 

drjeff

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Understand why last thread was closed, but fascinating back and forth.

Where are the examples that raising taxes creates significantly more government revenue without damaging business?

They're often in the books on the shelf right next to the books about unicorns, fairy dust and magical trees that grow money :wink::wink::wink:
 

bdfreetuna

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bruh we get to do these political debates a couple times a year and get away with it until the mods close it down

Closing the last thread was appropriate move, trying to fire it up again, not so much
 

JimG.

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bruh we get to do these political debates a couple times a year and get away with it until the mods close it down

Closing the last thread was appropriate move, trying to fire it up again, not so much

This. But let's let it go for a bit.

Most of these threads wander off topic and I can be the worst at flying down rabbit holes of conversation. So let's stay on topic this time.
 

1dog

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bruh we get to do these political debates a couple times a year and get away with it until the mods close it down

Closing the last thread was appropriate move, trying to fire it up again, not so much

Understand the sentiment, but it does affect our sport. (and every other aspect of life as well)

Skiing/riding is expensive enough, and adding to that expense narrows the potential new customer pool even more.

All business needs new customers to grow.
 

kbroderick

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Understand the sentiment, but it does affect our sport. (and every other aspect of life as well)

Skiing/riding is expensive enough, and adding to that expense narrows the potential new customer pool even more.

All business needs new customers to grow.

I'm actually amazed, after looking, that Maine doesn't tax lift tickets. Everything else gets taxed here, after all.

Taxing day tickets only may be one of the dumber ideas I've heard—not only does it put the state in the position of incentivizing season-pass purchases, but it makes accounting stupid-complex. I worked in IT at a smaller Vermont ski area for a while, and managing the point-of-sale system to track what got which taxes applied, which taxes were baked into the prices (e.g. lift tickets) and which weren't (e.g. hardgoods in the retail shop), which items were taxable (lift tickets are, lessons are not, even when selling a combined lift/lesson package; a normal sweatshirt in the retail shop wouldn't be, but one with the ski area logo on it would be, etc), and which tax rates applied (6% sales tax, 10% rooms and meals, different tax rules for soda vs beer vs liquor, etc.) was a damn cluster. And of course the state of Vermont does pay attention, and not only will they fine you if you undercollect, they'll fine you if you overcollect (and no, the over-collected funds do not apply to the bill you owe for under-collecting). If we also had to determine day tickets versus "season pass" products for tax purposes, that would have another set of permutations and just increased the cluster factor by that much more.

With that said, having the sales tax apply to lift tickets doesn't seem to be dooming the Vermont ski industry. It is an additional cost of doing business, and 9% seems steep, but the reality is also that there is a real infrastructure hit from tourists, and applying some form of sales tax is often the most effective way to have them subsidize the infrastructure needed to support their presence. I spent a few years in Montana, as well, where I lived in one of a handful of municipalities in the state that had voted in a local sales tax for just that purpose; even in a state that's generally tax-averse (there's no statewide sales tax, for example), a local luxury tax got voter approval, because it was seen as a way to support necessary infrastructure spending without raising the cost of living further.
 

cdskier

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Understand why last thread was closed, but fascinating back and forth.

Where are the examples that raising taxes creates significantly more government revenue without damaging business?

That's a very good question. I'd like to know as well. I can think of examples where it hurts for sure and has a noticeable impact on demand. For example NJ significantly raised their gas tax a few years ago with the intention of generating xxx additional revenue. There was a clause in the law that allowed them to adjust the gas tax every year to ensure that they still generated that "xxx" amount. Of course they didn't hit their targets and had to raise the tax again. Why? Pretty simple really. When you go from having gas that is much cheaper than your neighboring states, to having gas that is much closer in price to your neighbors, there's no longer an incentive for people from out of state to buy their gas here. You used to see pretty decent lines at some of the gas stations near the NJ/NY border on major highways at times. That's much rarer now. The projected revenue was based on the assumption that demand wouldn't change with the higher tax (which was ridiculous as the first thing a lot of non-politicians said was that demand would drop if you raised prices).

Is skiing the same? No, so perhaps not a great analogy by any means. I don't really care where I buy my gas. Most people do have much stronger preferences on where they ski though. Some will suck it up and pay more if they truly like NH resorts over resorts in ME or VT (or if they are locked in with property by NH mountains, or if they are more convenient, etc). But others will take their money elsewhere. Or some may still ski the NH resorts, but maybe just go a couple less times per season to make up for the higher costs. So for the NH resorts, do they lower prices to compensate for the taxes and eat the loss themselves? Or do they allow the prices to jump and risk losing customers? Not an easy decision. And hopefully the tax doesn't pass so resorts don't need to make that decision in the first place.
 

abc

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So for the NH resorts, do they lower prices to compensate for the taxes and eat the loss themselves? Or do they allow the prices to jump and risk losing customers? Not an easy decision. And hopefully the tax doesn't pass so resorts don't need to make that decision in the first place.
From what I read, there's little chance the bill will pass. So this discussion is largely academic.

But for the resorts, they will most likely be the one who actually got hit as they had to absorb the tax to keep the lift ticket the same level has been. NH is in competition with VT for skiers. The lift ticket price is mostly determined by the market, not by underlying cost. So taxing the lift ticket is simply asking the ski resorts to pony up the extra 9%. Hopefully, that point will be raised during the debate (if there's a debate)
 
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Killingtime

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I'm actually amazed, after looking, that Maine doesn't tax lift tickets. Everything else gets taxed here, after all.

Taxing day tickets only may be one of the dumber ideas I've heard—not only does it put the state in the position of incentivizing season-pass purchases, but it makes accounting stupid-complex. I worked in IT at a smaller Vermont ski area for a while, and managing the point-of-sale system to track what got which taxes applied, which taxes were baked into the prices (e.g. lift tickets) and which weren't (e.g. hardgoods in the retail shop), which items were taxable (lift tickets are, lessons are not, even when selling a combined lift/lesson package; a normal sweatshirt in the retail shop wouldn't be, but one with the ski area logo on it would be, etc), and which tax rates applied (6% sales tax, 10% rooms and meals, different tax rules for soda vs beer vs liquor, etc.) was a damn cluster. And of course the state of Vermont does pay attention, and not only will they fine you if you undercollect, they'll fine you if you overcollect (and no, the over-collected funds do not apply to the bill you owe for under-collecting). If we also had to determine day tickets versus "season pass" products for tax purposes, that would have another set of permutations and just increased the cluster factor by that much more.

With that said, having the sales tax apply to lift tickets doesn't seem to be dooming the Vermont ski industry. It is an additional cost of doing business, and 9% seems steep, but the reality is also that there is a real infrastructure hit from tourists, and applying some form of sales tax is often the most effective way to have them subsidize the infrastructure needed to support their presence. I spent a few years in Montana, as well, where I lived in one of a handful of municipalities in the state that had voted in a local sales tax for just that purpose; even in a state that's generally tax-averse (there's no statewide sales tax, for example), a local luxury tax got voter approval, because it was seen as a way to support necessary infrastructure spending without raising the cost of living further.

I feel your pain. I used to have to do state sales tax returns for a large company that filed in about 15 states. A lot of states have different tax rates based on county and city, such as NY, CA and TX. It was an administrative nightmare. I never want to see a sales tax return again ever in my life.
 

BenedictGomez

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Taxing day tickets only may be one of the dumber ideas I've heard—not only does it put the state in the position of incentivizing season-pass purchases, but it makes accounting stupid-complex.

Government NEVER cares about that, because it doesn't have to deal with that.

SOX regulation is a nightmarish penalty for smaller businesses to ostensibly regulate financial responsibility. Meanwhile the Federal Government can run a debt equal to almost $200,000 PER taxpayer*.

*I prefer putting it in these terms, because $23 Trillion is an abstract figure to most, and people literally dont understand it.
 

1dog

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Government NEVER cares about that, because it doesn't have to deal with that.

SOX regulation is a nightmarish penalty for smaller businesses to ostensibly regulate financial responsibility. Meanwhile the Federal Government can run a debt equal to almost $200,000 PER taxpayer*.

*I prefer putting it in these terms, because $23 Trillion is an abstract figure to most, and people literally dont understand it.



Actually almost 50% higher than $200K per person when all liabilities are figured in: https://www.justfacts.com/nationaldebt.asp

Easy way for people to understand is that if you have a $300K mortgage you'll pay $500K-$600K over the life of the note when interest is imputed.
 

deadheadskier

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Government NEVER cares about that, because it doesn't have to deal with that.

SOX regulation is a nightmarish penalty for smaller businesses to ostensibly regulate financial responsibility. Meanwhile the Federal Government can run a debt equal to almost $200,000 PER taxpayer*.

*I prefer putting it in these terms, because $23 Trillion is an abstract figure to most, and people literally dont understand it.

should be noted that

"leftist politicians unquenchable thirst for your money & government control"

aren't the one's primarily responsible for that $200k per taxpayer and growing number right now.

Sent from my XT1635-01 using AlpineZone mobile app
 

BenedictGomez

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should be noted that

"leftist politicians unquenchable thirst for your money & government control"

aren't the one's primarily responsible for that $200k per taxpayer and growing number right now.

Actually they are, though both parties have had presidents that are in the "most guilty" category, so it's really BOTH their faults.

The all-time champion is the FDR Administration, both the New Deal & WWII expenditures were incredibly massive. FDR is the Wayne Gretzky of debt, his record will never be topped. We'll be Venezuela if it is.

Wilson was 2nd-worst all-time. Bush II & Obama were both terrible as well, and Reagan's military spending put him up there.
 

abc

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The number is getting higher everyday, and we happen to have a rightist politician in the Whitehouse. Coincidence?

Another coincidence, the federal deficit ALWAYS increase when rightist politicians are in the Whitehouse!
 

drjeff

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The number is getting higher everyday, and we happen to have a rightist politician in the Whitehouse. Coincidence?

Another coincidence, the federal deficit ALWAYS increase when rightist politicians are in the Whitehouse!
Underneath it all, BOTH parties just want to be in control so they can decide how to spend more of the now roughly 4 TRILLION dollar annual budget in ways that augment their re-election chances by in effect "bribing" more of their constituents to vote for them again. Those on the right tend to do this by "giving" voters more of their own money via tax cuts (in reality the voters just get to keep more of money that was their's, not the government's all along) whereas those on the left tend to do this by proposing more spending programs to "give" constituents something and claim that the "rich" don't pay enough.

The reality is that BOTH parties are "Caucus before country" in their mentalities currently, and BOTH parties have a massive spending problem and refuse to act in adult ways when it comes to the budgeting process since that means they'd have to "take some things away" from their constituents, many of whom feel 100% entitled to various programs they benefit from, and the politicians know if they act fiscally responsibly that their re-election chances PLUMMET!

Sent from my Moto Z (2) using AlpineZone mobile app
 

BenedictGomez

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The number is getting higher everyday, and we happen to have a rightist politician in the Whitehouse. Coincidence?

Another coincidence, the federal deficit ALWAYS increase when rightist politicians are in the Whitehouse!

If you read my post that precedes yours, you'll see you're wrong.

Also, it "ALWAYS" increases regardless of who's in the Whitehouse because it mathematically has to unless a systemic change is made.
 

BenedictGomez

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I should have mentioned in one of my prior posts that we are financially doomed.

The day & hour cannot be known, but a reckoning is coming.

Sleep tight.
 

abc

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Underneath it all, BOTH parties just want to be in control so they can decide how to spend more of the now roughly 4 TRILLION dollar annual budget
Thats why I’m a libertarian at heart, but not voting as one.

There’s never any viable libertarian candidates. But worst of all, the Republican shamelessly claim they’re fiscally responsible when in reality they’re equally Irresponsible, but so many libertarians actually believe that lie! It irks me to no end the so called Libertarians automatically align to the Republican! It’s like being rob blind first, then invite the robber to move into the house!

Its one thing to have no choice (many of real life suck in that way). But it’s quite a different thing to pad one’s own shoulder on how correct/good that choice is. Like skiing refrozen coral reef and proclaiming that’s powder :) (here’s back on topic!)
 

1dog

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Actually they are, though both parties have had presidents that are in the "most guilty" category, so it's really BOTH their faults.

The all-time champion is the FDR Administration, both the New Deal & WWII expenditures were incredibly massive. FDR is the Wayne Gretzky of debt, his record will never be topped. We'll be Venezuela if it is.

Wilson was 2nd-worst all-time. Bush II & Obama were both terrible as well, and Reagan's military spending put him up there.

Reagan over doubled goverment income with thse two tax cuts - one thing he regretted - not the cuts - but how it grew government - and he ended the Cold War w/o a drop of blood because he rebuilt the 'biggest stick' and USSR went into virtual bankruptcy trying to keep up.

A strong ecomony after both WWII and Cold War pulled us out of financial trouble temporarily but we have no income problem, we have a spending problem -

And really folks, its us isn't it? We place or keep them there - US House is the only body who is Constitutionally responsible for spending $$


Its over-simplified but we have 330 M population; 1/3 under 18, so 200M eligible voters - half are not registered and then only half of registered vote so 25% of adults control who's in office.

Ben Franklin “When the people find that they can vote themselves money, that will herald the end of the republic.”
 

1dog

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These days hard to be libertarian if those left-leaning social issues require spending.

Its the damn social issues - legacy costs of Medicare/Medicaid/SS that will end us fiscally.

Get your point though.

Imagine this - I'll volunteer paying 40%, just reverse it - 25% to town/10% to state/5% to Feds - guess how many people show up at town meetings?

Live 'Fee' or Die?
 
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