Originally Posted By RoadTrip It's really somewhat meaningless to talk about this without looking at overall tax rates. Illinois apparently has a pretty high property tax, but their state income tax rate is just 3%. Minnesota has a relatively low property tax, but our state income tax rate is 5.35 - 7.85% Colorado has a relatively low tax rate at 4.63 % while California's goes from 1.05 - 9.3%. And of course besides income tax, you would also have to look at sales tax rates and what it is charged on. Overall I think things would start to even out somewhat. Source: <a href="http://www.taxadmin.org/fta/rate/ind_inc.html" target="_blank">http://www.taxadmin.org/fta/ra te/ind_inc.html</a>
Originally Posted By fkurucz In Colorado we have a state constitutional ammendment (TABOR) that indexes state expenditure increases to population growth and inflation. When revenues exceed the spending limit the surplus is refunded to the taxpayers (via tax return credits). Local communities can exempt their sales tax revenue from this limit via the ballot box (most do). Sales tax is generally in the 6-7% range, depending in the community. State income tax is a flat rate (4.63%) and is applied to to Federal net income, with the state tax deduction added back in. Property tax is tricky. We are basically paying the same property tax that we were paying 7 years ago, even though the county assesor says that the house has appreciated 100K during that time. This is likely due to TABOR. Anyway, local agencies (school, police, etc.) are always begging for tiny mill levy increases every election (that are TABOR exempt) and these are usually rejected by the voters. This year the school district is asking for an average $9 per year property tax increase to hire more teachers.
