state tax in ny vs ct vs nj (low income, sales)

[j_hat]

Hello all,

We recently move to east coast and currently rent in Stamford, CT. I work near Stamford CT while my wife work near Mahwah, NJ. So we are trying to decide on a best place to live.

Currently we have 3 options:
Continue in Stamford, move to NY (Rockland County area) or move to Mahwah, NJ.

We see that commute wise Nyack/Nanuet area (Rockland County) would work best for us. I will have a longer commute which is fine. But when I was looking at the state level income tax, it looked way higher in NY than what I would pay if I'm resident of CT/NJ. Does that sound correct? I used Tax-Rates.org - The Tax Information Portal to estimate the state tax in these 3 states and NY was coming almost 30% more than NJ/CT. Can someone provide some thoughts/insights on this?
Also the sales tax in NY looks way higher compared to NJ/CT.

The second question is on property tax. We currently rent but once we decide to buy, we would like to know where might have a better property tax. I read that NJ and Bergen County has the max property tax in the country. But when I look zillow/trulia for estimated property tax for properties in the range of $300K, it looks like Mahwah has much lower property tax for similarly priced properties than Nyack or Nanuet area in NY. Does that sound correct?

Please share any thoughts/comments based on your experience.
Thanks!

[BrownstoneNY]

Originally Posted by j_hat

Hello all,

We recently move to east coast and currently rent in Stamford, CT. I work near Stamford CT while my wife work near Mahwah, NJ. So we are trying to decide on a best place to live.

Currently we have 3 options:
Continue in Stamford, move to NY (Rockland County area) or move to Mahwah, NJ.

We see that commute wise Nyack/Nanuet area (Rockland County) would work best for us. I will have a longer commute which is fine. But when I was looking at the state level income tax, it looked way higher in NY than what I would pay if I'm resident of CT/NJ. Does that sound correct? I used Tax-Rates.org - The Tax Information Portal to estimate the state tax in these 3 states and NY was coming almost 30% more than NJ/CT. Can someone provide some thoughts/insights on this?
Also the sales tax in NY looks way higher compared to NJ/CT.

The second question is on property tax. We currently rent but once we decide to buy, we would like to know where might have a better property tax. I read that NJ and Bergen County has the max property tax in the country. But when I look zillow/trulia for estimated property tax for properties in the range of $300K, it looks like Mahwah has much lower property tax for similarly priced properties than Nyack or Nanuet area in NY. Does that sound correct?

Please share any thoughts/comments based on your experience.
Thanks!

Commuting across the Tappan Zee Bridge every day sounds like misery incarnate. But I guess you don't have a choice if one of you is in Stamford and the other in Mahwah.

Property taxes are for the most part set by town in NJ, so one town can vary significantly from another in property tax within the same county (though there is county property tax, too). You'll have to ask in the NJ forum for information about Mahwah property taxes.

NJ and NY have basically the same income tax, with only minor differences (NJ has lower taxes at very low incomes and higher taxes at very high incomes). Connecticut's income taxes are lower but not enough for taxes to be a serious consideration. NYC has its own income tax, but you're not considering living in the city, so that's irrelevant.

[j_hat]

NJ and NY have basically the same income tax, with only minor differences (NJ has lower taxes at very low incomes and higher taxes at very high incomes). Connecticut's income taxes are lower but not enough for taxes to be a serious consideration. NYC has its own income tax, but you're not considering living in the city, so that's irrelevant.

Thanks for the reply @BrownstoneNY! But I'm not sure I can agree with your statement that income tax is not significantly different.
For example: I tried to calculate state income tax for a gross income of $160K with married filing joint status. I used Tax-Rates.org - The Tax Information Portal for the estimate.
Below is what I got:
NJ Income Tax: $5885.60
CT Income Tax: $6360.00
NY Income Tax: $8674.75

So if you live in NY (outside city) instead of NJ, you will end up paying around 47% more tax than in NJ. Does that sound correct?

I know that you pay tax depending on which state you work. But AFAIK if you live in a different state then you can deduct the tax paid to other state and get/pay any difference. Right? Thanks!