When I bought my house 15 years ago, I think my annual tax bill was $3000-3200 a year. I had to submit my tax information to my accountant this week and scanned in my property tax bill, $5500 now. Fuck me I'm sick of these blood sucking sons of bitches in Texas. A friend in Austin bought a year after I did, in what used to be a blue collar neighborhood. His tax bill is $1k per month now. To add insult to injury I have been looking at property on one of the Hawaiian islands for fun. House I just looked at was low 7 figures, and the annual tax bill was $5500. So that's where we are at in Texas now. Your modest 2000 sq foot home has the same tax bill as a baller house in Hawaii. Fuck me. Thanks Californians for moving here you fuckers. I'm going to eventually get taxed out and have to sell my home.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Prefontaine,

I feel your pain. I'm budgeting $6,000 for next year's taxes, insurance, and HOA fees on my modest 1,602 sq. ft. townhome. Seems Tennessee has it right. My brother and S-I-L just retired there and the tax rate is only 25% on the appraised value of their property. Yup...sumbitches moving from the west are "California-ing my Texas". GTFO!!!

You know the bargain we made in Texas. No income taxes, but high property taxes.

Pick which way you want to be taxed. Stop complaining.

quote:

Originally posted by jhe888:
You know the bargain we made in Texas. No income taxes, but high property taxes.

Pick which way you want to be taxed. Stop complaining.

This is pretty much it.

Try living somewhere with personal property tax. Registering two new vehicles when we moved to WY was something like $1800/yr for the first couple years. My $78 TX registration looked a lot better after that.

quote:

Originally posted by jhe888:
You know the bargain we made in Texas. No income taxes, but high property taxes.

Pick which way you want to be taxed. Stop complaining.

Exactly. No free lunch. Just different methods to charge for it.
Once you get people to understand that concept, you can try to explain equalization or how millage rates, assessment values and how their portion of the budget gets collected. Good luck with that one.

We spend a day in Amarillo a year ago. We drove around the town and saw some beautiful home - some of which were for sale. Out of curiosity we looked a few up on Zillow when we got back to our hotel and we’re amazed at how inexpensive they were by comparison to our market. Looking further I could see the taxes were punitive. In Montana, we pay about 0.30% of market annually. Amarillo pays about 4%. Crazy.

quote:

Originally posted by jhe888:
You know the bargain we made in Texas. No income taxes, but high property taxes.

Pick which way you want to be taxed. Stop complaining.

I can complain about the increases. County taxes me like my house is 100% remodeled and in perfect condition for a sale. It is not. I have fought them, protested and they don't give a fuck. I get a protest response that basically says "deal with it!". It's out of hand.

Thanks Californians. You all moved here and all I got out of it was a massive increase in property taxes and traffic. Oh and increased remodeling fees because apparently all you jack offs move here with blank checks for labor and material.

Did I mention Tennessee does NOT have a state income tax??

quote:

Originally posted by Prefontaine:
Oh and increased remodeling fees because apparently all you jack offs move here with blank checks for labor and material.

Here lately, a big part of that is COVID-related too. Super low mortgage interest rates due to efforts from the Federal Reserve intended to jump-start the slumped economy have resulted in major house-buying demand and therefore a house building boom, and building supply prices have skyrocketed, due to the double-whammy of scarcity from production shortages and shutdowns in the factories, as well as the big increase in demand.

Supply goes down, demand goes up = Price goes up.

For example, lumber prices are currently nearly 2.5X what they were a year ago. And that's nationwide, not just in areas where Californians with blank checks are flocking. Other building supplies are experiencing similar increases. As a result, any remodels anywhere are going to be pricey for the near future, until the market eventually corrects itself, likely after interest rates start to climb again.

But hey, at least you can find lumber now, most of the time. There was a period last year where you couldn't find a single pine fence picket in my entire area, for several months straight.

(That housing market boom is also leading to increases in house values too, which will translate to further increased property taxes in the near future, once your house gets reassessed with it new even higher value. So the fun's just beginning on that front.)

quote:

Originally posted by jhe888:
You know the bargain we made in Texas. No income taxes, but high property taxes.

Pick which way you want to be taxed. Stop complaining.

Absolutely. You can't have your cake and eat it too.

My property taxes are around $1,600.00/year here in Arizona and my state income taxes are pretty low also, I paid $695.00 in State Income taxes last year.

I feel your pain. My view - mine are probably double but I also have to pay considerable state and I get none of the freedoms you exercise. Shed a tear for me too.

quote:

Did I mention Tennessee does NOT have a state income tax??

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Yeah but 8 percent sales tax.

Lobby for a law like Prop 13 California passed some 30 years ago. Under this law, property taxes cannot increase unless the ownership of the house changes. It happened because people were being taxed out of their property.

quote:

Originally posted by Flash-LB:


Absolutely. You can't have your cake and eat it too.

My property taxes are around $1,600.00/year here in Arizona and my state income taxes are pretty low also, I paid $695.00 in State Income taxes last year.

$2,295 all in? I'm in the wrong state! Kudos AZ!!!!!

quote:

Originally posted by Prefontaine:

quote:

Originally posted by Flash-LB:


Absolutely. You can't have your cake and eat it too.

My property taxes are around $1,600.00/year here in Arizona and my state income taxes are pretty low also, I paid $695.00 in State Income taxes last year.

$2,295 all in? I'm in the wrong state! Kudos AZ!!!!!

That's part of the reason I'm here. Another part is low prices and lastly, we're #1 in Best places for gun owners every year according to Guns & Ammo Magazine.

quote:

Originally posted by ZSMICHAEL:

quote:

Did I mention Tennessee does NOT have a state income tax??

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Yeah but 8 percent sales tax.

Consumption taxes are the best form of taxation. Everybody pays an equal percentage, all economic activity gets included, even monies derived from illegal activities, or from people below the radar like illegals who do not participate in income taxes. Furthermore, travelers and visitors also get to contribute some for the services they receive while in your state. Sales taxes also provide little opportunity for politicians to meddle by using the tax code to engineer society. In other words, they are fair. Lastly, they are efficiently collected at the point of sale, placing little burden on the public-at-large to comply with tax collection the way income taxes do, while providing little cost to the government for collection.

Kudos to Tennessee for doing it right. Oregon, you suck.

quote:

Yeah but 8 percent sales tax.

Actually non-food items are 9.25% to 9.75% depending on where you live. Nashville property taxes just got bumped 33% by the new liberal mayor. Also a very high property Transfer Tax exists when you buy a home.

quote:

Originally posted by ZSMICHAEL:

quote:

Did I mention Tennessee does NOT have a state income tax??

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Yeah but 8 percent sales tax.

8.25% sales taxes here in the Houston area. Looks like Tennessee is still in the win column.

You still have it pretty good.

I know people in PA paying $10,000 - $12,000 a year in property taxes.

Arkansas has the best system.

Income tax
Sales tax >9%
Property tax based on assessment
Personal Property tax on vehicles, boats and RVs. (In addition to the sales tax you paid on purchase)
And the weather sucks.