By ANDRU VOLINSKY

We released the 3-3 Tax Savings Plan last week to much fanfare. There were gasps and groans and grins and gratitude. The plan will cut property taxes for 80 percent of NH residents and make school funding more stable and affordable. The 3-3 Tax Savings Plan is based on a 3 percent income tax and a $3 true state property tax with large deductibles and a homestead exemption for homeowners and renters to make the plan as progressive as possible to protect working class and middle class taxpayers. The plan provides a full credit for the 100,000 out-bound commuters who already pay state income taxes in another state. Test drive how the plan will affect you at the NHTaxSavingsCalculator.com.

Overall, the 3-3 Tax Savings Plan makes housing in NH more affordable and spreads the cost to educate our children more equitably, concepts we can all support.

This post answers questions about the plan but first a word about the response to its rollout, some of which may have been criminal.

Is this a crime?

The Free State Republican/Libertarian in charge of our state responded to the 3-3 Tax Savings Plan with a death threat against me and a denial of service attack against our website (still being investigated). They also posted a fake tax calculator designed to mislead the user and a fake AI-generated election meme. And that was just the first week. Their henchmen in some dark corners of the press and at the Koch-funded Bartlett Center are trying to scare everyone with stale talking points from another era.

How afraid must the Free State Republicans and Libertarians be that they have gone to this extent to mislead you, the public. What don’t they want you to know?

The death threat was posted on the official X account of the Libertarian Party of NH. The threat was reported to local police and the NH Department of Justice. The DOJ interceded and the post was begrudgingly removed.

My friend Christian Urrutia immediately objected to the death threat and was also threatened. As Christian is running for Congress in CD-1, the threat against him may have election law implications. More to follow.

The Republican and Democratic Parties’ response to a threat of political violence was muted or non-existent. Governor Kelly Ayotte (R) has been silent. Democratic House, Senate and Party leaders were too little and too late in their generic condemnation of political violence; this in the age of Charlie Kirk’s and Melissa Hortman’s assassinations.

On the other hand, more than 1000 regular folks called, messaged and posted to express their concern for me. I am extremely thankful to them.

The denial of service or http flood attack is reminiscent of the Republican’s phone jamming crimes perpetrated during the 2002 US Senate election between then Governor Jeanne Shaheen and then Congressman John E. Sununu. Sununu benefitted from the phone jamming and narrowly won the tight race. Republican operatives placed 900 calls on Election Day to Democratic call centers to jam phone lines and disrupt Get-Out-The-Vote Efforts. Three Republican operatives went to jail for crimes stemming from this election interference effort. John E. Sununu is currently running to retake the Senate seat.

Last Wednesday, the day after we released the 3-3 Tax Saving Plan, the server hosting the NHTaxSavingsCalculator.com was overwhelmed with a burst of 3000 hits in three seconds. This knocked the server offline for half an hour. It’s the shameful and likely illegal modern version of the phone jamming crimes of the early 2000s.

Why isn’t the 3-3 Tax Savings Plan even more progressive?

Our twin goals are affordability and equity.

Spread the costs of public education more widely so the wealthiest 5 percent pay their fair share and we all benefit. So why don’t we simply recommend a Billionaire’s Tax (or a Millionaire’s Tax) like Senator Sanders and Representative Ro Khanna are promoting? The answer is it wouldn’t be constitutional under NH law.

NH’s constitution prohibits a progressive income tax with higher rates as a taxpayer’s income increases. Pt. 2, Art. 5 requires all taxes to be imposed at a flat rate. The NH Supreme Court however has opined that exemptions and deductions related to basic living costs are permitted. We designed the 3 percent income tax with deductions of $35,000 per taxpayer plus $15,000 for each dependent and an extra $15,000 for a single person who is head of household. This means the first $100,000 of income for a family of four will not be taxed. That’s $70,000 tax-free for a retired couple and $35,000 before a single working class person pays one dollar in NH income taxes.

The deduction amounts were designed with the basic cost of living in NH in mind. We used estimates from MIT for this work.

The living wage for a family of four per the MIT calculator is $90,000. We set the deduction at $100,000. The median household income that divides NH households in two is $99,000.

We also included a $250,000 homestead exemption for taxpayers whose primary residence is in NH. With a $3 true state property tax, that’s a savings of $750 each year right off the top.

Eighty percent of NH property taxpayers will see their state and local tax burden decrease under the 3-3 Tax Savings Plan, even with the income tax component.

How are renters treated under the plan?

We propose a homestead exemption for renters.

Renters pay property taxes indirectly through their landlords. The rent charged includes a component for the property taxes that the landlord pays for each rental unit. The 3-3 Tax Savings Plan makes renting more affordable by reducing property taxes for the landlord and by including a $750 renter’s credit that may be used against state income taxes. If the renter doesn’t pay income taxes (or not enough), we propose the renter receives a cash rebate from the state. The renter’s credit is the same amount as the homestead exemption and it would be available, one per rental unit, to renters whose primary residence is in NH. If more than one taxpayer lives in the rental unit, the renter’s homestead exemption would be shared.

Isn’t this going to create a lot of extra paperwork and be hard to administer by the state?

No. NH already has a state tax agency. It’s the NH Department of Revenue Administration (DRA). Before the state’s Income and Dividends Tax was repealed (creating a $180 million hole in the budget), the DRA competently administered that narrow income tax.

The NH Education Income Tax works off the same “adjusted gross income” you report for federal income taxes. When the Hager-Below-Fernald income tax was considered in the late 1990s, the proponents were able to reduce reporting to a one page form that simply carried over your federal adjusted gross income, applied your deductions and multiplied the balance times the flat tax rate.

NH residents who claim the homestead exemption will similarly file a short form with their local town or city where they pay school taxes. Those same towns and cities will be relieved of the responsibility to administer the statewide property tax. As a true state property tax, the administration will be switched to the DRA which maintains an entire municipal property tax bureau. The switch to a true state property tax more than offsets the burden of accepting a declaration of homestead exemption form.

Won’t the 3-3 Tax Savings Plan just increase my taxes?

No. The plan is about improving affordability and it will decrease property taxes for the vast majority of taxpayers in NH. Even with the NH Education Income Tax, the overall tax burden for most of NH will go down because the highest income earners will finally pay their fair share. Also, people who commute into NH for work will begin to pay taxes on their income.

The 3-3 Tax Savings Plan is a plan. It’s not a bill. It’s not law. The plan creates a revenue pool that the state will distribute directly to school districts. The state can draft the law that implements the plan to limit new spending. If a school district violates the law, it doesn’t get the state’s money. Legislators will have to be trusted to draft a law with reasonable limitations. Over time, a constitutional amendment can be adopted to bake in real commitments to fund education and real limits on local spending.

What can I do to help?

• Start with education.

Learn about the plan. Try out the tax calculator at NHTaxSavingsCalculator.com. Share the website and the calculator with your friends.

• Ask questions.

We all agree that property taxes are too damned high. If candidates or elected officials don’t like the 3-3 Tax Savings Plan, ask their solution. Make them show you their math. We have. And our plan is legal and constitutional.

• Write letters to the editor.

There is already a shameful effort to discredit the plan by Democratic and Republican leaders. They’re trying to protect wealthy political donors. Show them that you want real change.

• Run for office.

We released the plan in March to give people time to understand it and warm up to change. June is when candidates sign up to run for state office. Learn the plan. Talk to your friends and family. Then run for office.