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Best and Worst
Places to Live and Pay Taxes
Just
as there are great cars and okay cars, and great restaurants
and okay restaurants, when it comes to your finances there
are okay places to live and great places to live. All states
are not created equal when it comes to how quickly you'll
see your hard earned income taken from you by taxes. Remember
a dollar saved is a dollar earned. A person who didn't have
to pay 11 percent in state income tax just received an 11
percent return on their income without even moving a muscle.
The same holds true on sales tax. Do you live in a state with
a high sales tax or no sales tax at all? Car registration
can also take you to the cleaners. Does your state base car
registration on vehicle weight and thus a Jaguar costs as
little to register as a Taurus, or does your state base car
registration on the value of the car. That's nasty if you
enjoy a Benz, BMW, or Porsche. If you want to build a castle
there are some states where it won't cost more than pocket
change for property taxes and in other states you'd had better
have just won the lottery to pay your tax bill. You can actually
spend four times as much on property taxes each year in some
states as you can in others. With a $100,000 salary and the
exact same mix of other income and assets, in one tax-hungry
state you will pay $31,000 in annual taxes where in another
tax-friendly state you will pay less than $8,000. WOW!!
Individuals go through stages in their
lives. There are times when your income may be high and your
assets are accumulating. After retirement you'll probably
have no salary but your assets and investment income may be
substantial. There is a time in life when you'd rather pay
lower sales tax on the big-ticket item you want and you don't
care if senior citizens get prescriptions tax-free. Which
states offer the best deals and which states are actually
worth the trouble and expense to leave? In one region of
the U.S. virtually every state gets an almost failing grade
on taxes, and in another region almost every state earns high
marks for how little you will pay in taxes. Next week
we will name names and look at some of the different ways
you can save (or keep) a substantial amount of money. Call
the moving company and we'll give you the driving directions
to your destination in next week's research report.
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