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Comment by pattrn | Hacker News Reader

I live a mile north of New Hampshire's southern border. We have no income tax, no sales tax, the median property tax is within $800 per year of the neighboring states, and the median income is only $3,000 per year less than Massachusetts (pretty sure after accounting for taxes, New Hampshire is higher). As far as death rates go, the life expectancy is 79.5 years, which is pretty close to the 80.5 in Massachusetts and 79.7 in Vermont. Contrary to popular belief, we've been practicing social distancing for many years, simply due to the our low population density (/kidding). It's a pretty great place to live.

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As someone who was more or less forced to move to southern New England for his career I love northern New England but I have less than high opinion for people who talk it up as though it's the greatest thing ever. People moving to Northern New England for the taxes (after counting government fees and other taxes it's not really that low when it's all said and done) or the low prices or other shallow benefits and don't understand that these are different places with different cultures (though if their only experience is the I95 or I93 corridor I can see how someone might miss that) will be the death of it. I have lived in ME, NH and VT, they all have distinct cultures that are different than the culture you get in MA and CT (haven't lived in RI). I'm not gonna say they're wholesale superior (obviously it comes down to personal values and preference) but I find the things their culture does right very important personally and the things it does wrong very unimportant so naturally I like them all a lot better than MA and CT. If you're gonna move to NH, ME or VT do it for the culture fit, not for the shallow crap like being able to buy beer at Walmart. Also, to anyone from NH, ME or VT reading this, sorry for lumping you all together but I think we can all agree you have more in common with each other than you do with any state to the south.

So yeah, it's a great place to live but please stop broadcasting that or it will stop being that way.

I completely agree with you that the culture isn't for everyone. Many towns lack basic government services like trash pickup and public utilities, likely due to the reduced taxes (I haven't done a comparison, so this is just a guess). I was mostly addressing the original poster. If he/she lives five miles from the border, I suspect that the culture doesn't differ much.

> I live a mile north of New Hampshire's southern border. We have no income tax

I'm pretty sure you still have federal income tax, which is the bulk of income tax.

That's primarily why I listed all of the typical state taxes. When you combine property tax, state income tax, and sales tax, it can come pretty close to the federal income tax.

Point taken, though. I probably should have qualified income tax by calling it "state income tax." Quite a few people who read this board live in countries other than the USA. Thanks for pointing it out.

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