Real Estate Investors & Developers Bookkeeping in New Hampshire

Beyond sales tax, New Hampshire imposes the Business Profits Tax and Business Enterprise Tax. The Business Profits Tax is levied on business income, and the Business Enterprise Tax on a base of wages, interest, and dividends paid — so a business can owe the BET while showing no profit at all. Both start at fairly modest levels of activity. That sits alongside registration with the New Hampshire Secretary of State, and it is the obligation most often missed by businesses who concluded from the absence of a sales tax that New Hampshire asks nothing of them. It is accrued as it builds rather than discovered at year end.

New Hampshire levies a real estate transfer or deed tax at closing, on top of recording fees and title charges. Each of those gets a different treatment — some capitalize into basis, some are deductible now — and drawing that line inconsistently across years is the single most common problem we find in investor books. Getting it right at closing is far cheaper than reconstructing it later.

With no statewide general sales tax in New Hampshire, there is no rate to apply or reconcile — the liability account most businesses get wrong simply does not exist here. No sales tax and no wage income tax, but the Business Profits Tax and Business Enterprise Tax both apply above modest thresholds.

Registering to do business in New Hampshire runs through the New Hampshire Secretary of State and employer accounts through the New Hampshire Department of Employment Security. Because New Hampshire has no sales tax account to maintain, there is one less registration to let lapse than in most states.