Thursday, March 10, 2011

On Death and Taxes

Well nothing about death here actually, but over the last few months, off and on, I have been compiling absolutely all of our expenes for the Field House, the cottage, both automobiles, and more onto Microsoft Excel files. It makes doing personal income taxes so much easier! I also found a 'snipping tool' that lets you take a jpeg image of any part of your computer screen... How cool is that?

The astute reader will notice that our municipal taxes have doubled in seven years. I imagine the 60% increase in 2006 had a lot to do with that! Just another reason why buying a waterfront cottage of your very own is not the smartest thing you can do with your money. It is far more economical to rent someone else's for the time you want to use it!

There are only two compelling reasons to own a waterfront cottage: First, you have oodles of money to burn, and really want a cottage, whether you use it or not! Second (as is our case), you already happen to own the cottage, make substantial use of it, and are willing to rent it out to people smart enough not to buy their own to help cover the costs!



In 2003 the municipal taxes on the cottage were less than 50% of the taxes on our house in Tavistock. In 2010 the cottage taxes were nearly 85% of our house taxes! Such is the effect of rapid increases in value of waterfront real estate.

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