PAGE 14A — Addison Independent, Thursday, July 19, 2018
Tax bills
MIDDLEBURY WRITER JEREMY Holt holds his new graphic novel, “Skip to the End,” as he stands among stacks of older books at Middlebury College’s Davis Family Library. Holt’s new work explores music as a form of time travel.
Independent photo/Trent Campbell
Author (Continued from Page 1A) Book Shop will be hosting a book launch event, featuring Holt himself and cocktails from Stonecutter Sprits. Holt’s protagonist in “Skip to the End” is Jonny, the ex-bassist for a fictional band based on the ’90s grunge icon Nirvana, whose music has had a major impact on Holt’s own life. Originally, Holt said, he planned to base his protagonist on Kurt Cobain, the Nirvana frontman whose 1994 suicide shook the decade’s musical scene. “Then I realized that the man, the myth and the legend is just too great — it’s not accessible,” Holt said. “So I decided to pick the bassist.” “It’s the idea that Jonny has not moved on from this tragedy where his best friend committed suicide, so he’s constantly reliving his glory days in his mind. Then he comes into contact with a guitar that allows him to travel back in time,” Holt said.
“It’s him dealing with his sobriety “(‘Southern Dog’) is essentially as well as trying to find closure on a ‘Teen Wolf’ set in the Deep South,” really traumatic point in his life. In Holt said. It also dealt heavily in the process of trying to issues of identity — a save his best friend, he common theme for learns that time travel “This was the Asian-American doesn’t really work the definitely outside writer. “Skip to the way he thinks it does.” my wheelhouse. End,” meanwhile, On a recent This was a focuses on suicide and afternoon, Holt flipped addiction: heretofore through a copy of the challenge to write foreign topics for Holt. new book, published about because “This was by Insight Comics I didn’t want definitely outside my and printed beautifully to open up the wheelhouse,” he said. on 112 glossy pages. discussion about “This was a challenge Holt wrote the story to write about because addiction and and developed the I didn’t want to open characters, and Alex not have anyone up the discussion Diotto, who did connect with it.” about addiction and the illustrations, is — Jeremy Holt not have anyone credited as a co-author. connect with it.” While Holt and Diotto To prepare, Holt had already collaborated on the 2015 traveled to Seattle to view what graphic novel “Southern Dog,” Holt remains of the 1990s grunge scene, said the two works differ significantly and even attended a few Alcoholics in style and substance. Anonymous meetings, to understand
the mindset of addiction. “I needed to understand, what is it like for people who just can’t kick a habit that will essentially take your life if you’re not careful?” he said The book’s reception so far, he said, has validated his efforts in background research. “The book’s been out about a month now and I’ve been surprised by how many people have written me or asked me questions about addiction on podcast interviews, some of them thinking I had gone through it because of the way I wrote this,” he said. Especially in Vermont, a state touched deeply by the opioid crisis, Holt said that local readers have been showing appreciation. “One guy wrote me from Manchester and said that he connected with the book. His friend who was staying with him at the time has yet to kick the habit, he forced his friend to read it, and his friend felt very much in Jonny’s shoes,” Holt said. “This guy asked if I could donate two copies to the rehab clinic in his town. To me, that’s the greatest compliment.”
(Continued from Page 1A) statewide are probably inaccurate. assuring clerks the returns in question “I would consider that a fair are “under review.” analysis,” Samsom said. In the meantime Devine said He said the department plans an taxpayers who usually receive breaks updated release to the towns by July on school taxes should review their 27, and apologized to taxpayers and bills carefully. municipal workers. “This one is major,” she said. “It’s the kind of things we Vermont Tax Commissioner Kaj acknowledged and apologize for. Samsom told the Independent that the We know it’s disruptive for the Julydepartment, possibly due to the new billing towns, and also for taxpayers federal tax code, was who might get a bit late in reviewing of a sticker shock Anyone with a many of the roughly when they open their question on their 175,000 Homestead tax bills,” he said. Declarations that Anyone with a tax bill should Vermonters must file question on their contact the tax every year. tax bill should department at tax. contact the tax According to a individualincome@ department at tax. post that Devine provided to the individualincome@ vermont.gov or Independent from the vermont.gov or 802802-828-2865. Vermont Municipal 828-2865, he said. Government Town clerks Discussion Network, the Department and treasurers remain unhappy. One of Taxes had yet to review 14,000 of post from the discussion network those declarations by a July 1 deadline forwarded by Devine noted that to provide tax information to towns. clerks must satisfy banks with which Samsom said that total was taxpayers escrow monthly payments, unusually high, and acknowledged and deadlines are looming; taxpayers a communication failure in his will overpay those payments because department to alert towns — especially the issues cannot be settled in a timely the 25 percent of communities that manner, and those overpayments could send out tax bills in July, including pose a hardship for some residents; Middlebury and Vergennes as well as towns’ software will struggle to handle larger cities such as Burlington and payment adjustments; and the same Montpelier — that the files they were problem, on a smaller scale, arose a receiving on July 1 were incomplete. year ago and was not dealt with. “It was a miscommunication The post concluded, “Many within the department about Vermont municipalities have very communication,” Samsom said. “That limited staff so all this manual type of communication should have working, including all the people that gone out before July 1 … So they come in and call us because their state were prepared.” adjustments are not on their tax bills, Technically Homestead is a hardship for us.” Declarations are due on April 15, but Secretary of State Jim Condos late filings are allowed. Samsom said joined in on the discussion network the problem lies not only with late, but with what he called “a bit of also inaccurate or incomplete filings; constructive comment” in response to this year about 55,000 of the 175,000 the tax department post there. declarations required review. “Your note underestimates the Additionally, Samsom said, 70 amount of work that the clerks would percent of Vermonters pay the have to do to resolve this homestead education portion of their property declaration problem … this issue taxes based on their incomes and causes much more work than not on the assessed value of their you can imagine,” Condos wrote. property, and therefore towns need “Simply, VT’s City and Town Clerks accurate information about prebates work hard every day completing (adjustments to the individual tax bills a multitude of tasks in addition to based on income) as well as completed property tax bills.” declaration reviews in order to send Condos further offered in response out accurate bills. to the tax department post a possible “Both of those are key pieces solution to the problem of so many of information that towns need to Homestead Declaration forms incorporate into their property tax requiring department review: bills every year,” he said, noting that “By your own numbers, over 30 when Vermonters complete and file percent of the forms received ‘had their homestead declarations in a errors or otherwise were flagged, timely manner, the Tax Department requiring manual intervention by a can — as required by law — remit that tax examiner to post correctly.’ From information to the towns by July 1. a management perspective, if over But with 14,000 un-reviewed 30 percent of the forms are incorrect declarations and a quarter of the or need more review, it appears that towns already sending out bills, your forms may need improvement. including many larger communities, Perhaps (the Tax Department) should and 70 percent of those to taxpayers look at their forms more closely, who can expect prebates, Samsom utilizing focus groups with Clerks acknowledged that somewhere and homeowners to see why this is between 3,500 and 7,000 bills happening in such large numbers.”