is the way the Manchester Union Leader puts it.
[P]roperty taxes.. are for the most part locally raised and locally spent. They are painful to raise, which is why politicians loathe them. They cannot raise them easily, because they are raising them from their neighbors. And those neighbors also see what is being doing with the money.
How much easier it would be for the politicians to have a broadbased sales or income tax! The tax would be raised from afar (Concord) and the monies it would bring in would be stupendously large. Think of what a savvy politician could do with such a huge new income source.
Remember, too, that the property tax, that “worst funding mechanism,” wouldn’t go away. As has happened in every state where income and/or sales taxes have been enacted, the property taxes continue to increase.
Of course, New Hampshire doesn’t tax retail sales or income,yet. But the warning applies to us also.
Thanks to Mark Monson for the link.