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Comment by ransom1538 | Hacker News Reader

Taxes. State income tax. This can be as high as 9.0% (CA or NY). That is insane. If you make 100k, the state could take 9k a year. In some states that will cover your entire mortgage on a house. I love CA or NY, but FL, TX, NV, etc have NO state income tax. ID is awesome, but 7% taxes is no go.

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That isn't necessarily a robust analysis of cost trade offs. A good example of how this can be inaccurate is Texas which has a reputation as a relatively low tax state, but in order to fund its considerable road network levies extremely high property taxes which in turn trigger higher rents than might be expected. New Hampshire has a similar situation with low taxes being made up for with high property taxes which pay the cost of rebuilding the roads which are ripped up seasonally by frost heaves and geologic activity.

Ultimately people demand basic services which have to be paid for. Eliminating one source of funding may reduce the overall burden but more likely simply shifts funding.

US property taxes (even in lower cost states) are huge compared to the UK's council tax.

Isn’t this just another example of what you’re replying to? UK’s VAT sounds appallingly high to American ears too, but it isn’t really meaningful to compare a single type of tax in isolation.

The max council tax on say a 10 million pound mansion is around £4k - which from chats with some one living in one of the cheaper states is less than a basic 4 bed house.

Right, but other taxes make up for it.

Sales tax in many states is between 5-10 percent; the UK VAT is 20%. The top income tax bracket in the UK is a bit higher (45%) than in the US (37%) and the National Insurance Contributions are often larger than FICA (etc). The UK also has (e.g.) a TV tax, which the US doesn't.

Looking at headline levels doesn't always work especially if your middle class, Share options are taxed much less harshly you get pension tax relief at your effective rate.

we don't have to pay some one to do our taxes either.

Extremely high relative to what? Houston’s property tax rate is half of San Francisco’s, and a bit lower than where I am in suburban Maryland.

No it's not? Property taxes on a home in the Houston area will range from 2.3% to 3% of the appraised value per year. That includes improvements on land and it's not prevented from rising every year with the value of the house.

And many of these services are fairly essential, so if your taxes aren't covering them, you'll end up paying out of pocket for them anyway. This can be something like fire protection (e.g., if you live somewhere unincorporated) or healthcare (e.g., US).

> That isn't necessarily a robust analysis of cost trade offs

Considering it's 100% complaining about taxes and has zero analysis, yeah.

"If you make 100k, the state could take 9k a year."

That is absolutely not how income taxes work. If you live in California and earn $100k, your tax liability would be around $6k before any exemptions or deductions.

These things can easily be looked up, FYI.

So true, but as a first pass, the high marginal tax rates in California, Washington, and Wisconsin have to be accounted for as a "cost of relocating." If you are a successful professional you are probably making closer to $250K and the highest marginal rate can apply to that last $150K. So moving from low tax Michigan to high tax California can mean $10,500 more in taxes. Over 20 years that adds up.

Washington State has no income tax.

250k seems very high to qualify as a successful professional. Very few people will ever make that much.

If you are in tech and are considering moving to CA and the income tax difference is actually a deterrent then you shouldn’t move because you are already making a disproportionally huge salary for your region.

In my experience, talking to many many people considering moving to or from CA, the delta in salary coming to CA dwarfs any differences in income tax.

For reference, about 1.6% of Americans make $250K or more.

So your definition of "successful professional" isn't quite the proverbial 1%, but it's close enough for government work.

> Washington

Washington has no income tax.

We do have stupid regressive sales taxes.

and taxes on sugary beverages that don't include milk based beverages because Starbucks.

https://www.bankrate.com/finance/taxes/state-taxes-californi...

"These things can easily be looked up, FYI. "

Sorry what? Yes, you could have.

But ultimately the money spent by state governments has to come from _somewhere_.

Property taxes are quite high in Texas for example: https://www.kut.org/post/heres-why-property-taxes-are-higher...

Other states with no income taxes have highly regressive sales taxes: https://www.accuratetax.com/blog/regressive-sales-tax-infogr...

California's high income tax are bad, but not because they take too much income (that's a separate argument about the morality of taxing labor vs wealth). The income taxes are bad because when the labor market implodes the tax base dries up. At least there's a well-funded "rainy day" account now. But in the Great Recession state finances were quite a mess, which meant the services everyone relied on got cut. So essentially there was a one two punch of job losses and less services for the unemployeed to use.

Irish, tax is 52% on each euro above 33k year (about 20% below) property tax is about 300eur per year, no universal healhcare, employer pays health insurance.

Isn’t there no corporate tax rate in Ireland? Probably better to setup a corporation and freelance if taxes for employees is that high.

Corporation tax, It's there at 12.5% however if you have a company like I done for last 12 years you get hit with exact same income taxes as normal employees. Revenue have angles locked down. In fact as director you loose a pile of tax credits.

But but you can give yourself a loan out of company? Nope withholding tax due on that!

Ok what about expensing everything? Don't do it, Revenue will nail you as you are guilty until you prove yourself innocent in their eyes.

Idaho has a very small tax base, so they have to tax what's there at a higher rate. At the same time, what a lot of people like about Idaho is vast amounts of wilderness and unspoiled nature. If somebody loves to hike in the mountains, they're sooner going to pay 7% income tax and live in Idaho than move to Florida or Texas. It's the luxury of choice that someone making 100k/year in Idaho can afford.

Always trade offs. Can’t imagine living somewhere with draconian laws around employers owning work you do on your own time with your own equipment and space. California is a leader here. There are nice, less expensive cities in California like Chico if you can swing remote work.

This is a great thread on the details of how this works https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2208056

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