California Math and the 3.6% (Fontana: income, taxes, living in)

[.highnlite]

Lets look at it from another angle, just for fun, think of California has having a 15% over all tax burden and the lowest state, having a 5% overall tax burden, giving a 10% difference. We all know it is less than that.

Now, your local big box store advertises a 10% off sale,, would that excite you? Would you even bother to get out of bed for a 10% sale?

Now, your tax difference will be even less than that, not even worth getting out of bed for.

[Curmudgeon]

Nope! Not when they jacked-up the price 15% before putting it on sale at 10% off. Ain't realism for the unprotected/under-privileged hell?

[EscapeCalifornia]

Originally Posted by .highnlite

Lets look at it from another angle, just for fun, think of California has having a 15% over all tax burden and the lowest state, having a 5% overall tax burden, giving a 10% difference. We all know it is less than that.

Now, your local big box store advertises a 10% off sale,, would that excite you? Would you even bother to get out of bed for a 10% sale?

Now, your tax difference will be even less than that, not even worth getting out of bed for.

10% of a $40 DVD player isn't the same as 10% of one's entire income.

And in your example, its a 10 percentage point difference but there's far more than 10% difference between 5% tax and 15% tax. I guess they don't teach percentages on the ranch.

[SunnyTXsmile]

Ten percent, 20 percent, who cares the percent? If the percent doesn't work for you, there are other places to live. What is the sense in discussing it yet again? It's not going to change the percentage or whether or not a person is okay with it.

And no, it doesn't need to be explained in crayons. We understand the situation completely. We accept it for what it is, and go on with our day.

[Curmudgeon]

Originally Posted by SunnyTXsmile

Ten percent, 20 percent, who cares the percent? If the percent doesn't work for you, there are other places to live. What is the sense in discussing it yet again? It's not going to change the percentage or whether or not a person is okay with it.

And no, it doesn't need to be explained in crayons. We understand the situation completely. We accept it for what it is, and go on with our day.

Ah. Your leader has spoken! Beyond that...

[DCRAM]

I live in Virginia and plan on moving to California soon (but not for tax reasons obviously).

Anyhow, what I've learned is that states get their money at the end of the day, one way or another.

For example, Virginia has an income tax rate of 5.75% and a sales tax rate of 5%. Much lower than CA right?

Well while Virginia might be lower in these numbers, they get their money through other means.

For example, not only does Virginia charge property taxes on houses/land, they also charge property taxes annually on cars which California does not. Yes cars, a depreciating asset.

In the locality I live in, it's 5%. So every year I pay 5% of my cars value in taxes. It's like I'm re-buying my car every year. The nicer the car, the more $$$ you pay.

So if you buy a 30k car brand new, own it for 5 years, and it decpreiates at 5k a year, it breaks down like this:

1st Year: $3,000 ($1,500 sales tax +$1,500 property tax)
2nd Year: $1,250
3rd Year: $1,000
4th Year: $750
5th Year: $500

You just paid $6,500 in taxes on a 30k car over 5 years. Take out 1k for any loop holes/deductions within that time and you still pay $5,500, nearly 20% of the cars original value in taxes.

So at the end of the day, these states find ways to get their money.

[TVC15]

Originally Posted by SunnyTXsmile

Ten percent, 20 percent, who cares the percent? If the percent doesn't work for you, there are other places to live. What is the sense in discussing it yet again? It's not going to change the percentage or whether or not a person is okay with it.

And no, it doesn't need to be explained in crayons. We understand the situation completely. We accept it for what it is, and go on with our day.

Ah Sunny but that is the problem. As you have just been shown many really don't fully understand the problems in CA.

CA was already taking in more than enough in revenue before Prop 30. If people truly understood this they would not have voted for it. Well at least 44.88% of the people who voted no understood it. CA has a money management issue...for some reason the voters fail to understand this.

So it is important to help people understand what the real issues are so that they don't run to the polls and blindly vote on things that are going to further hurt this state.

[Curmudgeon]

Originally Posted by DCRAM

I live in Virginia and plan on moving to California soon (but not for tax reasons obviously).

Anyhow, what I've learned is that states get their money at the end of the day, one way or another.

For example, Virginia has an income tax rate of 5.75% and a sales tax rate of 5%. Much lower than CA right?

Well while Virginia might be lower in these numbers, they get their money through other means.

For example, not only does Virginia charge property taxes on houses/land, they also charge property taxes annually on cars which California does not. Yes cars, a depreciating asset.

In the locality I live in, it's 5%. So every year I pay 5% of my cars value in taxes. It's like I'm re-buying my car every year. The nicer the car, the more $$$ you pay.

So if you buy a 30k car brand new, own it for 5 years, and it decpreiates at 5k a year, it breaks down like this:

1st Year: $3,000 ($1,500 sales tax +$1,500 property tax)
2nd Year: $1,250
3rd Year: $1,000
4th Year: $750
5th Year: $500

You just paid $6,500 in taxes on a 30k car over 5 years. Take out 1k for any loop holes/deductions within that time and you still pay $5,500, nearly 20% of the cars original value in taxes.

So at the end of the day, these states find ways to get their money.

Our state also charges a personal property tax on cars although at a significantly lower rate. What we pay each year is considerably lower than annual car registration in CA which would be over double even if we included our state's minimal registration fee. Meanwhile we pay 17.3 cents tax per gallon for normal gas while Californians pay 48.6 cents for designer gas. So at the end of the day, CA is decidedly more expensive.

PS. For the past several years, houses have been a depreciating asset as well.

[BayAreaHillbilly]

Sure when you lump in all the non tax payers / recipients of allowances, CA taxes may not look quite so bad on a per capita basis.

But using real metrics measuring the tax burden on the productive parts of the economy ... WE STINK!

[.highnlite]

Sunny, Curmie feels very defensive about moving to a flat state, he becomes incredibly defensive about it. He is the guy, that some time ago I had posted a link to a horse trip my wife and I took in France, the travel broker used many of the photos I shot (one every 6 minutes while riding, it turned out) so some incredibly "bright" poster found that site and accused me of using the photos from that site to lie about my having taken that trip.

Curmie jumped all over that, accusing me of being a lying cheating unethical etc etc.

He was wrong then, he has a history of being wrong, I don't pay much attention to anything he posts, I just imagine a Barcalounger, a double wide trailer in Missouri, and a half empty bottle of Jack Daniels.