Best place near i91 (Keene, Winchester: sales, Home Depot, schools)

[briansol]

I'm a CT resident deep in affilate marketing as my main source of income. Our governor keeps signing laws that is making it impossible for me to continue to live here.
Overstock Pulls Ads Over
is an example of the problem. More and more retailers are basically saying FU to the states in this. All it's hurting is those trying to make an honest living.

As such, if any of my top 3 (90% of my income) jump ship alongside, i will basically have no choice but to move or go down with the ship.

NH seems to be to most logical place for me.
NY has these laws too.
RI ... meh
VT and MA are too socialist and strict about gun laws
ME is just too far away from home.
So, that makes NH the best place for me to be.
up 91 to the mass/vt border is all of a 1.5 hr drive, so i'd like to try to stay near I 91 and south if at all possible. My parents aren't elderly yet, but will be in 10 years, so being within 2 hours drive will be nice if i need to shoot home for an afternoon, or visit the nieces for a birthday, etc. I enjoy driving, so 2 hours isn't a big deal for me.

I don't want to live in the sticks, but wouldn't mind a nice plot of land (2 acres or so) as i do enjoy gardening in a nice quiet area. I'm used to the suburbs and while I think I would like to go 'country', I don't want to get eaten by a bear.


My only real requirements are
- reasonable distance to i91, and southern area of the state
- access to high speed, reliable, internet
- fairly close to shopping for groceries, home depot, etc, and/or a small mall, etc for supplies/etc.
- reasonable access to a pellet supplier. I don't like to use oil/gas/electric and wood is too much work (and too hot) for me. I would install a pellet stove as my main heat source
- Fairly close to a good hospital. I have a minor heart condition and will need to pay a visit there a few times a year for testing/monitoring or god forbid a failure. 911 service that doesn't take an hour would be a solid plus.


I already pay 5800/yr for my 1400 sqft house, so i'm not worried about property taxes... i imagine they will be similar up in nh, and i won't have sales tax or state income tax on top of it.

What about local taxes? car tax? other items i should know about?
Is NH considering jumping on with this tax law push? I would hate to move there only to have to move again in short time due to their having a similar law pass.


Spofford?
Keene?
the Swanzy's?
Chesterfiled?
Winchester?


Something in that general area seems to be the ideal spot. exit 3 off 91 to rte 9 seems to be the best/fastest route to a nice not-quite-suburb area.

Jobs aren't an issue as I work for myself from home.



Thanks for any insight you may be able to provide.

[GregW]

I see nothing wrong with a state collecting sales tax on on-line retailers. That is no different than collecting a tax on a car bought in NH and registered in Ct. Why should On-line retailers have an automatic advantage over local stores? IMHO that is unfair competition. I will add that I object to sales taxes because of the inherent regressiveness built into the system. As I have no idea what an "affiliate marketer" does I wonder if you could do almost all your sales work Online.

That be as it may, I suggest looking around the areas along State Rts 9 and 10 southwest of Keene. These are the roads that connect directly to I-91. The smaller roads, State 63 and 119 are much more difficult in winter.

[briansol]

This is the retailers 'fighting back' against the state since the state wants to mandate that they collect the tax, even when there is no presence in this state as an entity.
They are cutting 'us' off, and as a result, I will make less money, and the state and fed will collect less income taxes from me as a result, and the company will lose sales I refer to them.

To put it in perspective,
If you opened a small shoe store up, and a customer from Vermont came in to your store. Would you charge them vermont sales tax (assuming there is one) or NH sales tax (assuming there is one)? You would charge NH tax as that is where you are based out of, not where your customer is from. If Vermont then said you can't sell to my residents without charging our sales tax to them because they are from our state, it would be considered an outrage. Which means, now you need to file in 2 states.
Big companies and online would need to not only adjust all their stores to account for the tax (and it's not just 50 of them.... new york alone has over 20 different tax zones ) and a cpa team who knows all this to handle all the filings for each area/etc/etc and it quickly adds up to a huge expense. So, they are basically giving the states that have gone this way the finger.
I can't say i blame them, honestly. It just sucks that i'm on the failing edge of it.

It's a triple lose on all fronts, and the stupid politicians are too dumb to see this.

Car taxes are different, as it's a locally assessed property tax (at least here) that goes towards schools/etc.


Chesterfield/spofford seems to be the ideal area for me at the moment. Looking at the 2010 tax list,t hey are the cheaper areas, and pretty much dead center between keene and battleboro for hospitals/shopping/etc. I'm not worried about winter as i own a 4x4 truck.