A bill filed by five House Democrats could derail New Hampshire’s primary tourist attraction: The skiing industry. Always looking to create, expand, and increase taxes in order to empower themselves, politicians figured that they would expand the ‘room and meals’ tax to include all ski lift tickets. The current 9% tourist sales tax already applies to all prepared food, hotels, and rental cars. Seemingly eager to further damage the Granite State’s tourism industry, Democrats are hoping to expand that 9% tax to ski resorts so that skiers and snowboarders avoid New Hampshire, as well.
House Bill 1652 seems to require all ski resorts to obtain a license, display the license, and begin to collect a 9% tax on ski lift tickets, which must be given to the state government. Understanding how skiers would react to this new 9% tax, the sponsors of the bill mention that the revenue from the new tax would fund ‘education’ for ‘the poorest children in New Hampshire’.
“Now nobody could oppose this bill! If they do, we’ll just accuse them of hating poor children!”
Of course, informed citizens understand very well that this is the Democrats’ oldest trick. The Liberty Block even includes this tactic in our ‘jargon’ section.
If this Democrat bill passes the Democratic House and Democratic Senate and is signed into law by Governor Sununu, we can all expect an immediate 9% increase in the cost of our lift tickets. The millions of dollars that New Hampshire ski resorts earn from tourists who ski and snowboard in our state would also be greatly diminished once out of state residents learn that their lift tickets will be at least 9% more expensive than they were last year. This could force New Hampshire’s 15 ski resorts to increase their prices in order to make up for the lost revenue. Increasing prices generally decreases sales, so the resorts might be doomed to bankruptcy.
If you oppose this bill, make sure to contact the sponsors, the House Ways & Means Committee, and your own legislators. If you don’t stop this bill, nobody will!
