Do Wisconsin taxes affect your quality of life? (Luck, Union: credit, house)

[MUTGR]

Originally Posted by GraniteStater

I also agree that it is extremely important for the prevailing culture to place a high value on education.

You need to be a little more specific here. Are you really just talking about funding? Or are you talking about something else?

[monkeywrenching]

Originally Posted by The Northerner

Hi, interviewing in Lake Geneva next week, and I keep hearing and reading stuff about the horrible taxes in Wisconsin. How bad is it really? Property taxes seem much more reasonable in the LG area than elsewhere in the region. What other taxes contribute to this reputation as one of the country's worst tax burdens? Do the tax laws in WI negatively affect your quality of life? We have 4 kids and need to squeeze every penny we can. We also have an opportunity to move to the Dallas/Ft. Worth area in Texas where there's no state income tax, but I would rather keep us in the Midwest if I can.

hell yes, it is one of the reasons that I moved from western Wisconsin to Wyoming. now I have no income taxes and low property taxes.

[GraniteStater]

Originally Posted by monkeywrenching

hell yes, it is one of the reasons that I moved from western Wisconsin to Wyoming. now I have no income taxes and low property taxes.

And Wyoming is just not a desirable state for most people to move to. Of course taxes will be lower as it is an energy patch state with stronger revenues flowing into the state coffers. If I was looking to move to a no income tax state Washington and New Hampshire would be high on my list.

[sholomar]

there must be something about WI that's desirable because taxes remain high and yet demand to move there is still there. Michigan is far worse off by comparison and they have even more great lakes and lower taxes. Luck of the draw?

[ram2]

Originally Posted by stockwiz

there must be something about WI that's desirable because taxes remain high and yet demand to move there is still there. Michigan is far worse off by comparison and they have even more great lakes and lower taxes. Luck of the draw?

How is Michigan far worse off? Michigan taxes are not low. More like mid-level.

I do not hear anyone in the Detroit area expressing a desire to move to Wisconsin. In fact, I never hear anyone in Detroit even mention Wisconsin. I never heard anyone in Cincinnati expressing a desire to move to Wisconsin when I lived in SW Ohio.

[TrueTimbers]

Originally Posted by GraniteStater

And Wyoming is just not a desirable state for most people to move to. Of course taxes will be lower as it is an energy patch state with stronger revenues flowing into the state coffers. If I was looking to move to a no income tax state Washington and New Hampshire would be high on my list.

Sure Washington does not have income tax but the sales tax is higher and property tax is also very high as in Wisconsin.

I am over 10% per $1000, in Western Washington on property tax... My property tax rate in rural northern Wisconsin is around 9% per $1000. Sure, no income tax in Washington, but that is offset by my Jefferson county WA 9% sales tax, verses a sales tax of only 5.5% in Oneida county WI.

I believe it all balances out and the overall tax burden between any state ends up being only a couple percent at best. Not enough of a difference between states to impact the "middle class" person... Leave it to the top 10% to worry about.

IMHO one should let factors such as climate, culture and opportunity determine where one lives, not tax rates.

[milt14]

Originally Posted by ranger17

Obviously not every school in WI is top rated, but we accepted our higher taxes there as our child went to a good district and for us that was of high importance.

Good point, however it's a well known myth that spending more on teachers salaries and retirement packages translates into better education for your child.
Governor Walker has signed into law a bill extending 'open enrollment' for parents, so they can put their children into a better school if the one they are in is sub part, or even dragging along the bottom.

Here is the page for open enrollment: Open Enrollment Parents' Page | Open Enrollment

In another thread I mentioned researching the property taxes of a place where someone wants to live. A great portion of this is teachers pay.

People should look up their perspective area and see how well teachers are paid as it will affect their monthly property tax bill:

Database: Public schools salaries : Wsj

You can use that to look up Portage. Their population of 10K people has a school district where 14 people make more than 100K/year for their part time jobs. Deerfield has a population of 2K and four in their school system make over 100K/year.

High costing teachers don't mean great education, but they do mean high property taxes, some higher than others, so shop for your house carefully.

[Steve Bowen]

Originally Posted by milt14

In another thread I mentioned researching the property taxes of a place where someone wants to live. A great portion of this is teachers pay.

People should look up their perspective area and see how well teachers are paid as it will affect their monthly property tax bill:

Database: Public schools salaries : Wsj

You can use that to look up Portage. Their population of 10K people has a school district where 14 people make more than 100K/year for their part time jobs. Deerfield has a population of 2K and four in their school system make over 100K/year.

High costing teachers don't mean great education, but they do mean high property taxes, some higher than others, so shop for your house carefully.

Really? I think teacher's salaries are pretty reasonable. I think you'd be hard-pressed to find a school district in Wisconsin where the median salary for a teacher with a couple of years on the job is much over $45,000/year.

I think the real problem is administrator's salaries. I clicked on your link and looked through the first couple of pages of school district employees earning over $100,000, it looked like they were all administrators of various types. Very, very few teachers are making that kind of money, and in any case, I don't think we should begrudge teacher's salaries, or any other education spending that actually ends up in the classroom.

The issue is the remarkably large portion of education spending that doesn't end up in the classroom at all. Millions and millions of tax dollars disappear into the ether because of absurdly overpaid and largely unnecessary administrators making six figure salaries.

[milt14]

Originally Posted by TrueTimbers

IMHO one should let factors such as climate, culture and opportunity determine where one lives, not tax rates.

easy for a non middle class person to say. Someone moves to WI and buys a house for say 100K, finances it 100%, and their real mortgage payment could easily be about the same amount as their property tax per month. So this means your monthly payment to the bank, 1/2 is for your house and 1/2 to the government.

Someone moves to another state with 50% less property tax rate means they could buy 50% more house.
Or not and just pay 1/2 the "mortgage" you pay presently and save/spend the other half.

[milt14]

Originally Posted by Steve Bowen

Really? I think teacher's salaries are pretty reasonable. I think you'd be hard-pressed to find a school district in Wisconsin where the median salary for a teacher with a couple of years on the job is much over $45,000/year.

you think for a couple of years on a part time job making $45k/year is reasonable?
On an 8 month work year, that's $5600 a month in pay, $1400/wk?


Seeing as there's always a thread on how to change green bay, I took your 45K salary number and ran it for green bay. Person there gets an additional $20K a year cash value for their benefit package for that year.

So, after a few years on a part time job you make $65K? And that's not a lot?
That's $8K a month. And not only do you get all the govt vacation days, but every summer you can take off.

And these are the low end of the scale for teachers/admin people. No wonder most people feel so alienated from the government employee class.

Apparently the way to make green bay more tolerable is to be employed in the school system there.