State Senate Op-Ed: John Reagan Is A Tax Fighter

Press release from the NH State Senate:

July 9, 2021

John Reagan. Tax fighter. That’s the promise Sen. John Reagan makes every time he’s on the ballot, and that’s a promise he’s kept again this year.

For the past nine years, Reagan has led the fight to reform New Hampshire’s tax business tax code to make our state more competitive, creating jobs and opportunity. New Hampshire’s economy is among the strongest in the country. In fact, our state’s unemployment rate is the lowest in the country. This budget cuts taxes on New Hampshire employers, reducing the Business Profits Tax and Business Enterprise Tax, and increasing the threshold for filing the BET to $250,000. That will provide immediate relief to New Hampshire’s small businesses and help create more high paying jobs for our friends and neighbors.

We also phase out the Interest and Dividends Tax on savings and retirement income, helping our seniors. We protect Main Street businesses who received loan forgiveness under the Paycheck Protection Program from an unexpected tax bill and lower the Meals and Rooms Tax for the first time in decades to give a boost to our travel and tourism industry.

This budget provides relief to property taxpayers at every level. We send back $100 million under the Statewide Property Tax. We also share $188 million in Meals and Rooms Tax revenue with cities and towns, an increase of $50.5 million over the last budget, and for the first time protect that revenue sharing with a dedicated fund. We also increase funding for county nursing homes by $29.1 million, providing relief on the county portion of your property tax bill.

We promised to address education funding, and we delivered. The COVID-19 pandemic has created challenges for our schools. Because enrollments were down last fall, our school funding formulas would have provided less funding for districts next year. We promised that this would not happen, and we delivered. We have fixed the funding formulas and protected $67 million in state aid going to our local schools.

This budget also provides $30 million in building aid for new school construction projects, and $35 million under the Relief Funding Plan targeted to school districts with the most pressing fiscal need. Overall, this budget increases education funding by $102 million over current law for a total of $2.2 billion.

This budget expands school choice, creating Education Savings Accounts for low-income New Hampshire families who need more choices for their children’s education. School choice helps students who need options to fulfill their educational opportunities.

In addition to the state’s operating budget, John also took a lead role in crafting the state’s two-year Capital Budget. This vital bill sets the Granite State’s infrastructure priorities. This year’s capital budget will make improvement to the marine terminal in Portsmouth, fund critical maintenance at the Community Colleges, and leverage federal funding for drinking water and clean water projects, and continues to invests in the upgrades to our court system’s electronic records capability, improving service and transparency. This is important, detailed work that doesn’t get much attention. We salute John for getting it done as Chairman of the Senate Capital Budget Committee.

John Reagan is a tax fighter. We see further proof of that every year.

Sen. Chuck Morse (R-Salem) is Senate President. Sen. Jeb Bradley (R-Wolfeboro) is Senate Majority Leader.

This press release was produced by the NH State Senate. The views expressed here are the author's own.