Government ruined Northampton by excessive and uncontrollable spending as well as by regulations and statutes that impose financial and labor burdens which must be paid under threat of punishment. If a person desires to live in Northampton the lowest cost of the taxes that must be paid can be $5,000 a year, about One Hundred Dollars each week. Most residents pay over $7,500 a year.
The township engages in a trick to hide tax increases. They provide an additional bill instead of just increasing the real estate tax. They break out trash collection and demand several hundred a year. Another $600 for sewer service. More for water service. More for being alive, called an occupation tax which is demanded even from retired people who no longer have an occupation. There is even a Northampton Income Tax.
A tax is money that must be paid by individuals to government. Taxes are not voluntary. Taxes are forced payments taken pursuant to governments threat of punishment. Some think taxes are confiscations. A regulation that imposes an action is a tax because it requires money, time, and/or labor to be spent. The prohibition of an action such as forbidding the use of a 100 watt incandescent light bulb, requires intellectual labor be used to think up an alternate way to act.
Government often tricks citizens into accepting additional financial and labor burdens, including the use of labor to carry out demands by government. Socialists for example invent duties that must be done under threat of punishment for the failure to perform the required action, usually a payment to a government entity. Socialists base their tax claims on invented moral duties such as “community needs come before individual needs”.
So the next time you hear someone say: “Northampton is a great place to live” tell them: “it used to be before government ruined it.”
Township employees have travelled to Hong Kong and China and the taxpayers got the bills.
