As several of you know I live in CT. Other than the politics and taxes things are not all bad - rains a lot and everything is very plush and green up here. Taxes, however, just suck.
We have Federal Taxes, sales taxes, Taxes on our houses as I did in Texas. Then we get State taxes as well as a tax on our autos, trucks, ATVs, boats etc.. all taxed based on the value each year. To give you an example of what this is as being from Texas this was a big WTF when I moved up here. My daughters car (mazda cx3) has a assesed value of $16,390 (not sure where they get that value as I doubt I could sell it for that) it is 4 years old and for the priveledge of driving it here cost $450 per year. My Ram truck is just under $1000 a year and a Jeep that is $600 and another clunker kid car is about $200. So that is about $2K a year above any car payments, registration, inspection, emmisions, insurance, gas(also a hefty tax item) etc... . If I had a nice boat and here on the shoreline, a lot of people do, I would likely be donating another $2K for that and one of the reason outside of I would not get enough use out of it and I would have to winterize and store it off season that I do not have one. These are all Taxes and assessed in the same way houses are in Texas.
Living here compared to Texas probably cost me an additional $40K a year. Granted I do make more up here but not a spot to retire in for sure.
We have one kid left in HS and a senior and when he moves on, I am ready to call it quits up here. can't wait to go down the tax office with my registrations and tell them to F-OFF. I am sure there will be tons of BS to deal with in getting off their tax books. I have had to deal with issues like that when I return a lease on a car and they keep sending me bills even although I returned the plates and gave them the paperwork. They have no problem however accuratly adding the new car though and I didn't have to do a damn thing. Funny thing with leases as the state did not know what to do when leases became popular, but they fiqured it out fast enough and switched their model from a property tax to a useage tax - since you technically do not own the vehicle.
By the way when you see a really nice car, like $100K+, up here there is a good chance it will have a FL plate on it - not that the car ever sees FL and is done to avoid being taxed on it.
We have Federal Taxes, sales taxes, Taxes on our houses as I did in Texas. Then we get State taxes as well as a tax on our autos, trucks, ATVs, boats etc.. all taxed based on the value each year. To give you an example of what this is as being from Texas this was a big WTF when I moved up here. My daughters car (mazda cx3) has a assesed value of $16,390 (not sure where they get that value as I doubt I could sell it for that) it is 4 years old and for the priveledge of driving it here cost $450 per year. My Ram truck is just under $1000 a year and a Jeep that is $600 and another clunker kid car is about $200. So that is about $2K a year above any car payments, registration, inspection, emmisions, insurance, gas(also a hefty tax item) etc... . If I had a nice boat and here on the shoreline, a lot of people do, I would likely be donating another $2K for that and one of the reason outside of I would not get enough use out of it and I would have to winterize and store it off season that I do not have one. These are all Taxes and assessed in the same way houses are in Texas.
Living here compared to Texas probably cost me an additional $40K a year. Granted I do make more up here but not a spot to retire in for sure.
We have one kid left in HS and a senior and when he moves on, I am ready to call it quits up here. can't wait to go down the tax office with my registrations and tell them to F-OFF. I am sure there will be tons of BS to deal with in getting off their tax books. I have had to deal with issues like that when I return a lease on a car and they keep sending me bills even although I returned the plates and gave them the paperwork. They have no problem however accuratly adding the new car though and I didn't have to do a damn thing. Funny thing with leases as the state did not know what to do when leases became popular, but they fiqured it out fast enough and switched their model from a property tax to a useage tax - since you technically do not own the vehicle.
By the way when you see a really nice car, like $100K+, up here there is a good chance it will have a FL plate on it - not that the car ever sees FL and is done to avoid being taxed on it.
