Amanda Loder was StateImpact’s multimedia reporter until the project merged with the New Hampshire Public Radio site in July 2013. She now serves as a reporter and Weekend Edition Host for NHPR. You can continue to follow her work at @AmandaLoderNHPR, at nhpr.org, and on New Hampshire Public Radio.
Cigarette sales are down in New Hampshire, despite the recently lowered tax
By now, we imagine you’ve probably heard about the state’s $4 million revenue shortfall last month. New Hampshire’s major media outlets have been reporting on the issue since last night, and they’ve tended to zero-in on the same thing: Most of that lost revenue comes from lackluster cigarette sales. And, of course, this point raises the question: Was the Republican push to lower the cigarette tax by 10 cents last summer a bad idea?
Since there’s been so much number-heavy coverage on the issue between yesterday and today, we’ve decided to sift through it all so you won’t have to.
So without further ado…the highlights (or lowlights?) of October revenue. Continue Reading →
“About 300 owners lost their homes in September. That’s 8% less than a year ago. Until now, New Hampshire Housing has been reluctant to forecast how the year will end up. But with just three months left, it now expects to see about 3600 in 2011. Continue Reading →
Weirs Beach is a main attraction in Laconia, which has seen a bit of a boom in its second home market.
Here at StateImpact, we’re interested in how second homes contribute to New Hampshire’s economy. With ten percent of the state’s housing stock made up of vacation homes, only two other states have a higher proportion secondary homes–Maine and Vermont.
As part of a series last summer on how the vacation home economy works in the state, we used data from the US Census to create an interactive map that shows, town by town, where these homes are concentrated. (You can check it out here.)
In that same post, we noted that New Hampshire saw a net increase in vacation homes of 13.3 percent, or 7,497 units statewide, since 2000.
StateImpact wants to know: Is New Hampshire really an anti-tax state?
I’ve written a few posts recently about Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain’s 9-9-9 plan. (You can read the first post here.) The second post, “Cain’s 9-9-9 Touches Third Rail of New Hampshire Tax Policy,” generated a number of comments from StateImpact readers, but this one, part of a larger comment from Anonymous, stood out:
“…As for the whole notion Granite Staters — unlike any other around the nation — don’t like paying taxes, have you met a lot of people who don’t live in NH who LIKE paying taxes? Come on, we are not some exotic breed. We need to stop swallowing our own marketing about “tax-free NH.” Paid your property taxes lately?”
Anonymous’ comment leads to an interesting question — how anti-tax is New Hampshire, anyway? Continue Reading →
These are the five StateImpact posts that drew the most traffic, so we think you probably liked them the best.
As we promised last Friday, we’ve been keeping track of which posts got the most clicks this week. So without further ado…here’s our inaugural Essential StateImpact post for the week: Continue Reading →
Herman Cain's 9-9-9 plan has made him an unforeseen contender for the presidency. But how does the plan play in New Hampshire, a state known for its libertarian values and unorthodox tax structure?
The attractiveness and simplicity, of Herman Cain’s 9-9-9 plan — a nine percent federal income, corporate and sales tax — has catapulted the Georgia businessman to the head of the Republican presidential field. But for some states, 9-9-9 wouldn’t be simple at all. A handful of states—including the first-in-the-nation primary state of New Hampshire—don’t have a sales tax. So what would a federal sales tax do to the New Hampshire economy? Continue Reading →
The New Hampshire Lottery has struggled with declining revenues over the past few years.
As we reported yesterday, New Hampshire’s lottery revenues have been steadily declining over the past five fiscal years. Since the lotto funds the state’s education system, lower sales translate into less money for schools. (You can read our first post here.)
Still, the lottery isn’t exactly generating chump change. In FY 2011, the education system raked in $62.2 million. It’s big money. Just not as big as it could be.
So we wanted to know, what’s driving lotto sales?
(If you’ve ever worked at a gas station, grocery store, or other lottery retailer, you probably already know the answer…) Continue Reading →
Washington DC and 43 states use lottery games as a way to boost revenues.
Traditionally, New Hampshire hasn’t looked kindly on taxes. Overall, there’s a sense in the state that people like their government lean and their taxes low. But even without a large social safety net, the government has to fund basic services somehow. Higher property taxes help make up for having no sales or income tax. Other taxes, like the Room and Meals, shift some of the burden to out-of-state visitors.
But StateImpact is interested in an alternative slice of the revenue pie–we want to know how the state uses gambling, liquor and cigarette sales to fill its coffers. How much do these sources rake in? And how–if at all–can the state get even more money from them? In short, we want to know:
What does the Economy of Vice look like in New Hampshire?
So starting this week, we’re launching a series of short, data-driven posts focusing on the New Hampshire Lottery. Once we’ve introduced you to the basics of how the lottery works, and how it stacks up compared to the rest of the region, we’ll wrap-up with a longer, in-depth post next week.
For today, we’re focusing on what the state lottery funds. Continue Reading →
StateImpact's got a lot of vittles in the news frier.
It’s been a couple of months since we first launched StateImpact New Hampshire, and now…we’re turning up the heat. Here’s just a taste of what we’ve got cooking:
We’ve got another Herman Cain post that’s just about ready to come out of the frier. We briefly mentioned it in a post about his 9-9-9 plan here.
Starting next week, we’ll launch a series of posts focusing on the New Hampshire Lottery: Where it’s strong, where it’s weak, and why.
We’re also interested in state taxes: What gets taxed, what doesn’t, what they fund, and where the holes in tax policy are. Periodically, over the course of the year, we’ll be dropping in with this occasional series. Some will be more like beginner’s guides, while others will dig into the wilds of tax policy wonk-dom.
Starting next week, we’ll be keeping track of which posts draw the most clicks. And on Friday, we’ll clue you in to the Essential StateImpact New Hampshire–the five posts that get the most traffic or the most comments.
We’ll also be doing more of this: Telling you what you can expect from StateImpact in the near future.
Republican presidential front-runner Herman Cain's 9-9-9 plan is generating a lot of buzz, but what will it do to New Hampshire and other states without sales taxes?
New Hampshire is one of a small minority of states without a sales tax.* So when Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain announced his 9-9-9 Plan — 9 percent corporate tax, 9 percent income tax, and a 9 percent national sales tax — residents of New Hampshire started feeling a bit nervous. While the Cain plan is a federal tax overhaul that he claims is low impact for most Americans, it would essentially force residents of New Hampshire to pay a brand-new tax.
So we wondered how the Cain plan could affect businesses and individuals in the Granite State. As the only New England state without a sales tax, New Hampshire is a major force in regional retail sales. So could 9-9-9, a plan designed to spur business and job growth, actually have a negative effect on businesses in New Hampshire? Continue Reading →
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