Not Enough Babies?

[Torvy]

We've had this discussion before the son's house has a higher value. Like they say. Location, location, location.

The more popular the location, the more valuable the property and house. I cannot compare my rural house to one in the city. That is why you look at overall tax burden and not anecdotal evidence. Property taxes are a combination of levy and valuation. Valuation is tricky because some is based on market value and some is based on manipulation of taxpayers.

Notice my earlier attachment. Among the 10 lowest tax burdened states are 5 of the 8 no-income tax states. Among the highest 10 states, zero of the 8 are there.

Iirc, I debunked the truck thing before, too. Sales tax on vehicles is indeed higher. The annual registration is pretty close to the same between NM and TX.

 

[jyoutz]

Anecdotal information like this is notoriously difficult to square up. So many factors can influence the numbers. As simple as "is his vehicle newer and more valuable than yours?" Which would explain at least some difference in registration cost.

The County you are in has perhaps the lowest property tax rate in the entire nation-- .56 percent of value. Good for you! National average is about 1 percent. So pretty much anywhere else, your son's property tax would be about double, but not six times as much.

"6 times" higher property tax, all other things being equal, would be a property tax rate of over 3%. I've never heard of that. So- is your home purchase from long ago with a lower valuation compared to your son's more recently purchased home with a higher value? Does his property taxes included bonds, special assessments, HOA fees, or anything similar whereas yours does not? If any of those things exist it's not really a fair comparison.

After you equalize things out, the differences will likely shrink, maybe by a lot. Then you have to factor in the amount of income tax savings your son enjoys not having to pay-- presuming he is employed and being paid.

I moved from a high tax State (CA) to a no income tax State (NV) more than 10 years ago. Our DMV fees are roughly the same, also property tax rates roughly the same, maybe slightly higher in NV due to Prop 13 in CA. But the savings of income taxes not paid far overwhelms all the other numbers, making it less costly here.

Your state is able to have no income tax because of the taxable receipts from the casino and tourism industry. Not all states are in that situation. As for my son’s savings from no income tax, the differences between property taxes are more than I pay in state income taxes. I don’t want to continue this as a discussion. I was just pointing out that states have a baseline of citizen services and have to fund them in some fashion. Some states use a combination of income taxes, sales, and other taxes, and some use higher sales taxes, mining royalties and other fees instead of income taxes. And each state has different options based on population and the economic drivers. Comparison to CA and NY is different because those are two of the highest tax states in the country.

 

[jyoutz]

We've had this discussion before the son's house has a higher value. Like they say. Location, location, location.

The more popular the location, the more valuable the property and house. I cannot compare my rural house to one in the city. That is why you look at overall tax burden and not anecdotal evidence. Property taxes are a combination of levy and valuation. Valuation is tricky because some is based on market value and some is based on manipulation of taxpayers.

Notice my earlier attachment. Among the 10 lowest tax burdened states are 5 of the 8 no-income tax states. Among the highest 10 states, zero of the 8 are there.

Iirc, I debunked the truck thing before, too. Sales tax on vehicles is indeed higher. The annual registration is pretty close to the same between NM and TX.

Actually my house has a much higher valuation than the house my son is buying. About a 55% higher valuation. Since he is buying, we know the appraisal. They also have toll roads where he lives. Texas will always be able to run with no income taxes because of the huge royalties received from petroleum and the large population/sales tax base. More sparsely populated states without mining royalties may not have that revenue base. Just pointing out that there is a baseline of state services and states fund them somehow. Texas provides a lot of state services, so they are being funded by the citizens in some fashion.

 

[jyoutz]

Gubmit workers rely on confiscation of peoples incomes to pay their salaries, so the aforementioned actually like taxes. Higher taxes mean higher salaries, more benefits, higher pension multipliers, and more gubmit workers that also vote the same way.

“No joke”.

The discussion isn’t focused on your corrupt rust belt area.

 

[plowhog]

Actually my house has a much higher valuation than the house my son is buying. About a 55% higher valuation.

I'm always interested in real estate topics, so I did some math trying to plug in your numbers. Best I can tell:

The "income tax" state home has value about $520k, $2,900 prop tax

The "no income tax" state home has value about $335k, $11,000 prop tax

I'm going to presume this is the lowest property tax rate in the country compared to the highest possible property tax rate. (Before now I never knew there was a .056 tax rate anywhere.)

I cannot imagine buying a home where the prop tax is $11k on a home value a little above $300k. That is quite a financial drag.

I congratulate you again on your amazing property tax rate-- sure wish that was what I am paying! Enjoy!

 

[2manyrocks]

As for the original topic of declining birthrates, it's pretty obvious that people having children and buying houses have historically been linked in the US. With housing prices having doubled since 2019, and wages not keeping pace with real shelter inflation, that will negatively impact young people's decisions to have children.

Animal shelters in the USA have already seen a large increase in intakes and fewer adoptions because of inflation eating into people's discretionary income to have pets.

Buy a house, start a family, get a dog.....that's all been upended by inflation caused by excessive government spending for political purposes funded by printing money.

 

[jyoutz]

I'm always interested in real estate topics, so I did some math trying to plug in your numbers. Best I can tell:

The "income tax" state home has value about $520k, $2,900 prop tax

The "no income tax" state home has value about $335k, $11,000 prop tax

I'm going to presume this is the lowest property tax rate in the country compared to the highest possible property tax rate. (Before now I never knew there was a .056 tax rate anywhere.)

I cannot imagine buying a home where the prop tax is $11k on a home value a little above $300k. That is quite a financial drag.

I congratulate you again on your amazing property tax rate-- sure wish that was what I am paying! Enjoy!

Your valuation numbers are about $100K low on the first and $15k too high on the second. But thanks for doing this comparison. And to be fair, our place in the country is county land, not in an incorporated town, my son’s house is in a large metropolitan area. The services we receive are very different. We are lucky to get the roads graded and plowed occasionally and see the sheriffs weekly. My son’s property has all of the typical city services.

 

[ultrarunner]

It’s a trade off when services are comeasurate with higher taxes.

The rub comes when the lower tax county has better than the higher cost city…

 

[BravoXray]

We need to stop having so many babies, or it's going to get ugly in a few decades.
Like George Carlin once said, " the Earth is doing just fine, but we're effed."
Interesting report by The World Population Report.
How Many People Can the Earth Support 2024

 

[paulsharvey]

We need to stop having so many babies, or it's going to get ugly in a few decades.
Like George Carlin once said, " the Earth is doing just fine, but we're effed."
Interesting report by The World Population Report.
How Many People Can the Earth Support 2024

No, everything I've seen shows the entire developed world having well less than replacement number of births; the 2nd world is pretty close to even, or slow gains for now; and even the 3rd world has sharply decreasing birthrate, while still high. When you say how many people can the world support; not sure what you mean? We can easily produce 150% to 200% the food; and we don't have anyone in the world starving from a lack of food (from a lack of money, yes, or even a lack of infrastructure, but not a lack of food). Water? Maybe, but I don't see the being near a critical stage except in Egypt, or maybe Pakistan, Uzbekistan, and Afghanistan. To some degree the mega cities in Africa (Kinshasa) and generally Bangladesh, Lagos, maybe a lack of treated drinking water, but not a lack of fresh water. Lack of room for people? Not really, sure Bangladesh, Netherlands, Java, but thats not a world wide problem. Japan was able at peak to support 150M in an area of roughly the 13 original US states.