Chez Chesler

New Hampshire doesn't have a sales tax, except  8% on hotel rooms, restaurant meals, car rentals, and tobacco, electricity, communications and real estate transfers are also taxed.

New Hampshire doesn't have an income tax, except on income earned by deferring consumption and investing.

New Hampshire local property taxes go to local services, except $4.92 per thousand goes to a statewide education pool.

This dearth of tax revenue means that New Hampshire has to fund its roads with turnpike tolls.  Due to the locations of the toll booths, these tolls tend to hit folks traveling to and from Massachusetts, and within the town of Merrimack, particularly hard.

Formerly, New Hampshire sold tokens for 12.5 cents each ($5 for a roll of 40) that were good for 25 cents of toll.  In order to motivate people to use electronic transponders, which provide a discount of only 30%, New Hampshire stopped selling the tokens in 2005, and stopped honoring them on Janyary 1, 2006.

The NH State Senate approved a measure that would have allowed a partial redemption (the tokens would have been usable at 12.5 cents, no discount or interest)  in April 2006, but the NH House rejected the measure.

Praise is due to an elderly Braintree, Massachusetts man, Thomas Jensen, who showed more principle than the entire Granite State this week, choosing to spend 3 days in jail rather than pay $150 for allegedly stealing services by paying for his toll with the tokens New Hampshire had sold him with the promise that they could be used for that purpose.

There aren't that many tokens in circulation.  How much could it cost New Hampshire to accept them at tolls, as they come in, compared to the cost of holding a trial and keeping Jensen in jail for three days?

I had replenished my roll before they went off sale and I had less than a roll in each car.  I go through the Merrimack tolls to visit my parents about once or twice per month.  If I'd known New Hampshire wouldn't be keeping its promise I might have signed up for a transponder at the discount price of $5, or maybe not.  It certainly doesn't pay for me to buy one at $25 -- with its expected lifetime I'm better off paying full price ($5 per year for the transponder, versus $3.60 per year discount for one round trip per month), or taking the Burque and Daniel Webster Highways.  In any case, I don't like the loss of privacy.  (See this story about EZ Pass records being used by divorce attorneys.)

An earlier story in Fosters, on the trial, by Adam Krauss also illustrates the lying and lack of intelligence that is too rampant among police.  Trooper First Class James Downey testified that there was no contract involved in the sale of the token because "they're not signed ... If I go and buy a candy bar at the store, I don't have a contract with that store."  For a contract to be valid there must be offer, acceptance and consideration.  Senior Magazine's article specifically addresses contracts that exist in the selling of food.  (There was no argument that the sale of tokens was for real estate or couldn't be complete in a year or was otherwise subject to the statute of frauds.)$nbsp;But if Downey is right and there is no contract, why do we owe New Hampshire 50 cents as we exit the Everett Turnpike?

Labels: contracts, NewHampshire, NH, tokens, tolls