HB 1461-FN-A-LOCAL - AS INTRODUCED

2000 SESSION

00-2565

04/10

HOUSE BILL 1461-FN-A-LOCAL

AN ACT relative to an education property tax exemption and school choice.

SPONSORS: Rep. Torressen, Carr 10; Rep. Mirski, Graf 12; Rep. Gilman, Graf 1; Rep. Boyce, Belk 5

COMMITTEE: Finance

ANALYSIS

This bill provides that individual taxpayers who claim a constitutional exemption pursuant to Part 1, Article 6 of the New Hampshire constitution shall be exempt from paying the education property tax in support of public schools.

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Explanation: Matter added to current law appears in bold italics.

Matter removed from current law appears [in brackets and struckthrough.]

Matter which is either (a) all new or (b) repealed and reenacted appears in regular type.

00-2565

04/10

STATE OF NEW HAMPSHIRE

In the Year of Our Lord Two Thousand

AN ACT relative to an education property tax exemption and school choice.

Be it Enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives in General Court convened:

1 Statement of Purpose.

I. The general court finds that Part First, Article 6 of the New Hampshire constitution guarantees that "[A]s morality and piety, rightly grounded on high principles, will give the best and greatest security to government, and will lay, in the hearts of men, the strongest obligations to due subjection; and as the knowledge of these is most likely to be propagated through a society, therefore, the several parishes, bodies, corporate, or religious societies shall at all times have the right of electing their own teachers, and of contracting with them for their support or maintenance, or both. But no person shall ever be compelled to pay towards the support of the schools of any sect or denomination. And every person, denomination or sect shall be equally under the protection of the law; and no subordination of any one sect, denomination or persuasion to another shall ever be established."

II. The general court also finds that based on Part First, Article 4 of the New Hampshire constitution which guarantees that "[A]mong the natural rights, some are, in their very nature unalienable, because no equivalent can be given or received for them. Of this kind are the Rights of Conscience," parents must be free from the compulsion to support religious humanism as taught in the public schools of this state, and free to choose alternative schools for their children.

III. In Torcaso v. Watkins, 367 U.S. 488 (1961) (declaring unconstitutional the Declaration of Rights provision in the Maryland Constitution which required a declaration of belief in the existence of God as a condition for holding public office in the state), the United States Supreme Court commented in footnote number 11 that: "[A]mong religions in this country which do not teach what would generally be considered a belief in the existence of God are Buddhism, Taoism, Ethical Culture, Secular Humanism and others."

IV. Further, the general court finds that the United States Supreme Court in Zorach v. Clauson, 343 U.S. 306 (1952) held that "[T]he First Amendment, however, does not say that in every and all respects there shall be a separation of Church and State. [W]e are a religious people whose institutions presuppose a Supreme Being."

V. The general court finds that John Dewey, a signer of the Humanist Manifest I in 1933, redesigned public education in the United States upon his dictate that there is no God and no soul; no room for fixed natural law or permanent moral absolutes.

2 New Section; Apportionment, Assessment, and Abatement of Taxes; Constitutional Exemption from Education Property Tax. Amend RSA 76 by inserting after section 3 the following new section:

76:3-a Constitutional Exemption from Education Property Tax Payments. In accordance with Part First, Articles 4 and 6 of the New Hampshire constitution, the commissioner of the department of revenue administration shall grant an exemption to any individual taxpayer who is subject to the provisions of the education property tax under RSA 76:3, upon the filing of a duly certified affidavit of exemption stating the taxpayer's dissent from the support of public schools based on his or her constitutional right of conscience. Such affidavit shall be filed with the city or town clerk no later than 30 days from the date of the first tax bill in the taxpayer's city or town of residence.

2 Effective Date. This act shall take effect 60 days after its passage.

LBAO

99-2565

12/10/99

HB 1461-FN-A-LOCAL - FISCAL NOTE

AN ACT relative to an education property tax exemption and school choice.

FISCAL IMPACT:

The Department of Revenue Administration indicates this bill may increase local expenditures by an indeterminable amount in FY 2001 and each year thereafter. There will be no fiscal impact on state, county and local revenue or state and county expenditures.

METHODOLOGY:

The Department states municipalities are responsible for a fixed amount under the statewide property tax and the number of exemptions granted under the terms of the bill will only affect the number of citizens paying the tax. The amount collected by the municipalities and remitted to the state will not change.

The Department is unable to determine the cost to municipalities to administer the exemption since the number of taxpayers that will apply for the exemption is unknown.