Tax comparison between US States

[Agvg]

Tax value of property and not income must feel very unfair, have it here in Norway to but I pay only a 150$ a year. Stil its a very bad way to do it.

 

[EddieWalker]

I'm from CA and left for a variety of reasons to live in Texas. According to this article, California is a Tax Friendly state and Texas is Not Tax Friendly. Reading what they write about each state, they list some of the taxes are rates people pay in each state, and it's not even close how much more people in CA pay over TX. It makes no sense how they came up with their conclusions when their analysis says the opposite.

 

[Dftodd]

Yes, this is very deceiving. Comparing property taxes from one state to another is very apples and oranges...some states re-assess property every so many years, while others go by purchase price...so if you paid $30,000 for your house in 1972, that's what your tax rate is based on as long as you own it. Seems unfair to me.
Also, home values vary considerably from state to state...yeah the tax rate in state A might be half of what state B's is, but if the average house price is double it all comes out in the wash.
I had to laugh when I saw California listed as "tax friendly".

I've seen a similar article to the above one. Wife and I thought the same thing about California and Hawaii.

Have relatives that live in LA and a suburb of Seattle. I've seen their houses and know what they are valued at, and of course the discussion switched to what we pay in taxes

They about cry when they find out what my mortgage/ tax bill/ and insurance are here.

 

[LS Tractor Owner]

Yeah, there is no way that Arizona is more tax friendly than New Mexico! The property tax is a little lower in Arizona but general sales tax is higher by a good bit. Vehicle registration in Arizona is about 15x higher (I pay $52 in NM, AZ would cost me near $800). If you are a multimillionaire, AZ seems to be more friendly, but for me, just an average guy... NM is far easier on me....

They don't really do a broad spectrum analysis in this comparison.... I think it is comparing only one segment of the population. The "grading" of tax friendly cannot be the same for the guy that retired at 65 with a pension and annuities, to a 72 Y/O that lives on SS at $1600 a month.....

 

[Dftodd]

We get a Save Our Homes discount. It doesn't stop our taxes from going up but offers some protection against inflation. After you retire your income typically doesn't increase that much so it seems perfectly fair not to increase one's property tax beyond their means. We have Californians moving to our state all the time and paying above market value for property. If our taxes tried to keep pace with their escalating property values we would be homeless in a few years.



I bought a stockcar from a guy in Virginia a few years back. He was telling me how your license plates were priced by vehicle value. This seems terribly unfair to me. He said he won't own anything less than 10 years old. I'm sure many others in that state adopt the same practice. Seems the auto dealers would lobby against that. Ours tags are based on vehicle weight.

Here in Arkansas there is a "Personal Property Tax" on anything with a registration. So you pay property tax on boats, motorcycles, vehicles, trailers, motor homes. Plus mobile homes fall into this category.

There is a flat $25 tag fee per year. Trailers including campers get a permanent tag. The camper and trailer personal property tax ran me around $50 per year. The vehicles run me around 230/ year. So around $280 for personal property tax.

You have to have the personal property taxes assessed before you can register your vehicle each year. And a permanent trailer tag becomes invalid if the PPT wasn't paid or the trailer assessed for that year.

Realistically my truck with the $25 tag fee runs me around $145, and my wife jeep is around $130 per year.

The camper was $35 per year, and my landscape trailer costs me a whopping $15 with the permanent tags.

 

[polo1665]

Remember the comparisons they are making are based on how taxes in those states affect retirees.

 

[ericm979]

What's weird is that they posted the assumptions they used and there's no mention of retirement:

The “tax-friendliness” of a state depends on the sum of income, sales and property tax paid by our sample filers.

To determine income tax, we prepared returns for a married couple with two dependent children, an earned income of $150,000, and qualified dividends of $10,000. They paid $10,000 in mortgage interest. Since some states have local income taxes, we domiciled our filers in each state’s capital, from Juneau to Cheyenne. We calculated these 2018 returns using software from Credit Karma.

How much the sample filers paid (and deducted on their income tax return) in property taxes was calculated assuming a residence with $400,000 assessed value and each state’s average tax rate.

How much they paid in sales taxes was calculated using the IRS’ Sales Tax Calculator, which is localized to zip code. To determine those, we used Zillow to determine zip codes with housing inventory close to our sample assessed value.

400k is the average house price in Sacramento, CA's capital. Sacto is outside the SF and LA urban areas and is less expensive to live in. That county has lower sales taxes than many CA counties but the difference is small- 7.75% vs around 8.75 for many counties in the big urban areas. Seems like using the same household income for all states is not realistic. States with large urban areas have a lot more well paying jobs (like the ones they used as an example) than many states lacking those large urban areas.

CA has a few retiree-friendly policies: Social Security is not taxed, property tax valuations can only go up by a max of 2%/year, and state income taxes on moderate incomes are pretty low (which they did point out in the article, but poorly).

 

[TractorGuy]

A flat rate income tax is long overdue. Too many variables throughout the states and systems.

 

[user.69169]

Tell you couple things.
State of Maine more den happy to register yer trailer or RV and mail you a NonResident plate for it. Lady in Sec State offce told me they got thousands of plates in Hawaii and best dey know there ain't no bridge. Said Maine loves selling plates to people not gonna wear der roads out.

Second thing, don't care where you live, sit down and add up all tax you pay and Use Fees and rest of de crap you get charged for, and you gonna be sick. NY charges Sales Tax on somting I buy on ebay from somebody in Canada, and dey tax shipping too. Dey charge Sales Tax on de gasoline tax da Feds suck out my tank.
Property tax, Fire tax, School Tax, gasoline tax, Propane tax, telephone tax, Law Enforcement tax fer when my car get stolen, ammunition tax, arrow tax, and about 10 others I can't name off top of my head but dang sure pay. Even got quiet taxes, like 10% on capitol equipment bought by a hospital. Only thing I bought I don't think I paid sales tax on is my eternal file drawer over at de grave yard.
Last I added up between NY & Feds dey got 60¢ of every Dollar I made.

BUT dey give me a lot of service for my taxes. Been tryin to renew my Registration on my ride for 4 weeks now, on line cause only able to get in DMV wid an appointment, and next available in February due to de WuFlu. Got a transaction number, dey got my money, and now I got an Issue number and need to wait 5 working days for a reply email. BTW, don't you dare drive dat vehicle on de road after 1 November or State will IMPOUND it and let me walk back to de house.

 

[dodge man]

I think they all mentioned retirement, at least the one I checked did. It ironic, Illinois has a flat income tax rate and they are trying to change it on this ballot. The want the “billionaires to pay their fair share”. The problem with California is the property tax is lower but my house would be valued at least 5 times higher so I’m paying as much or more.