Tax Law Blog | IRS Tax Attorneys

The city of Nashua has had it’s tax rate increased by less than 1 percent, the mayor announced Wednesday, and one alderman said it couldn’t have come at a better time.

“This is one of our smallest increases over the last 10 years,” Mayor Donnalee Lozeau said. “I hope this provides some comfort for our residents in these uncertain times.”

Lozeau announced the tax rate during her remarks at the beginning of the board of aldermen’s meeting. The state Department of Revenue Administration sets the tax rate based on financial information provided by the city.

The new rate is $17.55 per $1,000 of assessed property value. It marks an increase of 15 cents, or 0.8 percent, over the current tax rate.

With the new rate, the owner of a home assessed at $250,000 would pay $4,387.50 in city property taxes this fiscal year, or $37.50 more than last year.
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Make sure to get your maximum refund. Why should the IRS get to keep a penny of your money?

For 2007, you got to take off as much as $3,400 from your income for each qualified exemption you have, up from $3,300 in 2006. (The level rises to $3,500 in 2008.) Despite myths to the contrary, these include children who are full-time students under age 24, regardless of how much income they may have. As your income increases, your exemption deduction may decrease. For 2007, on a joint return, your exemption deduction were phased out between adjusted gross income of $234,600 and $357,100.

For singles, the numbers are between $156,400 and $278,900. With the exemption rising in 2008, the phaseouts increase as well.

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KPMG, a well-known international accounting firm, released its annual survey of corporate and indirect tax rates for 2008, showing that the U.S. corporate income tax rate was higher than all other global regions, 14.1 percentage points higher than the global average and nearly 17 percentage points higher than the average among European Union nations.

In Tax Foundation Fiscal Fact No. 145, “KPMG Study Finds U.S. Corporate Tax Rate Higher Than Every Global Region,” Tax Foundation President Scott Hodge explains that America’s stagnant business tax system is potentially harmful to America’s economic competitiveness in the global marketplace.

“Of the 106 countries surveyed, only the United Arab Emirates (55 percent), Kuwait (55 percent), and Japan (40.69 percent) impose a higher corporate tax rate than the combined rate of 40 percent in the U.S.,” says Hodge. “What this says about America’s tax competitiveness is not good.”
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