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Rural Vermont. The story is worthy of a screenplay.

Small town starts to tax a family for the commercial water line in a general store that closed in the 60's, that happens to be on the property, because, small town. Family has visions of a B&B, vineyard, wedding venue. Everything down the drain in the end, because lawyers are expensive.

Still there to this day: worn out stencil on the window of the 'general store'. "Sorry, we closed in 1968".



giving the town tax money isn't going to do it. you need to make the people in the town richer, and most of the people aren't going to see a dollar of that tax money. at least, not directly or in the short term.


The family in this situation had business plans that would have done just that, (B&B and a wedding venue), in a town of 300 where there is only a restaurant (catering) and a general store (everything else). The family sourced and bought everything not just locally, but from the town and surrounding farms (all dairy, meat, and produce)

The tax was imposed to get the family out of the town, and it worked - the family is not rich. In the end, they had to sell their family home (which had been in the family since the 1930's) and leave (which they did).

They were taxed out because the family is notoriously progressive, and the town is very much the opposite. There was cultural friction. Keep in mind that this was 20 years ago. These were very polite 60's era hippies, all college-edumacated and everything - and the (very small, very tight) town didn't want them in it.

The town hall imposed a (crazy) tax, and they had to leave.

Depending on where you are, some value preserving a local culture over 'getting richer'.




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