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Fortunately you don't live here. Fortunately the residence of North Carolina will determine the future of our residents and will participate in the future of yours. Perhaps this legislature has cut to much and the previous spent to much and was booted out. Time will tell.
Very good insight, TuborgP. Addressing fiscal issues is always unpleasant. No one wants to lose; and some issues/programs are sacred cows, as well. Voters will assess and yes, Time will Tell.
Last edited by brokensky; 08-13-2014 at 10:32 AM..
We lived in the Charlotte area many years ago. I worked in Charlotte and my wife worked in Ft Mill, so we built our house in Ft Mill. We cruised through last year after not having been there for several years. Blown away by the growth along 77 down to Ft Mill. Drove by our old house which is now in the shadow of Baxter Village. No more hearing the cows moo there on a quiet day.
The changes are quite astonishing in many areas! Union County is another eye-popper. What were open pasture fields in 2000 are now semi-dense housing developments. Growth has been so fast that infrastructure (roads, sewer, schools) was quickly obsolete or at best - strained. It takes revenue to fix these things so no way around higher taxes.
Austin area has 7 different taxing entities in their property tax bill. I moved and where I am now only has 2.
Only seven? Sounds like heaven!!! (no poem intended, LOL).
Here we have TWENTY-ONE different property-taxing entities : School district, County, District Court, County Police, Townwide, Town General, Highway Tax I, Highway Tax II, Highway Tax III, Highway Tax IV (each depends on type of roadways), NY State Real Property Tax Fund, NYS Real Property Tax PD, Metropolitan Transit Authority Tax (yes we help pay for NYC's transit system even though we are not part of NYC), Metropolitan Transit Tax PD, Out of County Tuition Fund, Ambulance District, Fire Dept, Library, Street Lighting, Highway Lighting, and Garbage Collection.
And if your particular area has sewers, you can make that TWENTY-TWO different taxing entities after adding in your sewer district tax.
This is not in a village or city either. This is the typical tax bill structure anywhere on LI. If you happen to live in one of the incorporated villages you will have a separate additional property tax bill from them as well. The tax bill I quoted above is the kind that everyone who owns a home on LI gets.
People in Austin should count their blessings that they have only 7 taxing entities on their bill, LOL.
Easy to take a self-centered, avaricious position when one is talking about someone else's life, someone else's worth, someone else's dignity.
I'm sorry you felt threatened by moral repudiation of the antisocial perspectives you prefer. Regardless, I'm talking about the morality of the decisions regarding the nation's economy and its impact on people, not any specific person's money. This highlights a critical lesson you need to learn - that life is not always just all about you.
It is sad to read about the puerile and petulant nature of NC politics.
It is even sadder to read the arrogant and holier-than-thou preaching which you delight in practicing. Speaking of critical lessons people need to learn, you would do well to consider what a huge turn-off it is to impute lack of morality to those who do not share your exact economic and social ideas.
You will not convert people to your way of thinking by that sort of personal put-down.
Only seven? Sounds like heaven!!! (no poem intended, LOL).
Here we have TWENTY-ONE different property-taxing entities : School district, County, District Court, County Police, Townwide, Town General, Highway Tax I, Highway Tax II, Highway Tax III, Highway Tax IV (each depends on type of roadways), NY State Real Property Tax Fund, NYS Real Property Tax PD, Metropolitan Transit Authority Tax (yes we help pay for NYC's transit system even though we are not part of NYC), Metropolitan Transit Tax PD, Out of County Tuition Fund, Ambulance District, Fire Dept, Library, Street Lighting, Highway Lighting, and Garbage Collection.
And if your particular area has sewers, you can make that TWENTY-TWO different taxing entities after adding in your sewer district tax.
This is not in a village or city either. This is the typical tax bill structure anywhere on LI. If you happen to live in one of the incorporated villages you will have a separate additional property tax bill from them as well. The tax bill I quoted above is the kind that everyone who owns a home on LI gets.
People in Austin should count their blessings that they have only 7 taxing entities on their bill, LOL.
Oh my goodness. Now I have a better understanding as to what my friends from LI (who have relocated to the Charlotte area) were talking about when they referred to my having NO IDEA just how bad it can get with taxation. My head would spin when they would tell me what their annual tax obligations were but I never saw it spelled out that way.
This is sooo important to know before relocating in retirement!!!
Only seven? Sounds like heaven!!! (no poem intended, LOL).
Here we have TWENTY-ONE different property-taxing entities : School district, County, District Court, County Police, Townwide, Town General, Highway Tax I, Highway Tax II, Highway Tax III, Highway Tax IV (each depends on type of roadways), NY State Real Property Tax Fund, NYS Real Property Tax PD, Metropolitan Transit Authority Tax (yes we help pay for NYC's transit system even though we are not part of NYC), Metropolitan Transit Tax PD, Out of County Tuition Fund, Ambulance District, Fire Dept, Library, Street Lighting, Highway Lighting, and Garbage Collection.
And if your particular area has sewers, you can make that TWENTY-TWO different taxing entities after adding in your sewer district tax.
This is not in a village or city either. This is the typical tax bill structure anywhere on LI. If you happen to live in one of the incorporated villages you will have a separate additional property tax bill from them as well. The tax bill I quoted above is the kind that everyone who owns a home on LI gets.
People in Austin should count their blessings that they have only 7 taxing entities on their bill, LOL.
My brother lives on Long Island. He already knows he can't stay there when he retires.
Tells me it's a good thing he paid off his mortgage because his tax bill and insurance bill has taken its place.
One thing that I think people on this and the personal finance board often forget is that retirement "as we know it" is really a construct of the last century for all but the very wealthiest. It is a blip on the historical radar due to our recent technological progress and relative prosperity.
Prior to that, if someone was elderly and/or infirm, their children and the community would pitch in as they were able, much as is done in many traditional Asian cultures. Bills and debt, to the extent we know them now, were much smaller or didn't exist. I doubt there was much in the way of health care costs (as we know it) because medical care was generally simple and primitive, as well as having fewer big corporate players in the mix. There were no phone bills, cable bills, constant car payments, or any of the other debts we're accustomed to. Moreover, if someone became gravely ill, they didn't have as much in the way of life-sustaining measures as we do today. Life expectancies were shorter, and retirement was much shorter.
One my great aunt's never worked outside the home. Her husband was apparently a diligent saver, but he died in 1980. Between the life insurance, his small pension, government assistance (asked my grandmother about her last year and she said the aunt was on assistance), and their savings, she was able to pay off the home, and never worked a day again. It was a meager existence, but she did it. She was only in her 40s when he died. She died two years ago at 80 after being in a nursing home for five years and on dialysis for the better part of that. Obviously, there weren't enough assets to pay for her long-term care. The nursing home has rights to the house, but so far hasn't done anything with it, as her daughter continues to live there. I'm guessing whatever her insurance or Medicare won't cover will just be written off.
Many people like to talk about retiring in their 40s or 50s, but it's also true that many of those people will still be alive at 75 or even 85. With lifespans lengthening and retirement ages coming earlier, many people are going to be "retired" for nearly as long or perhaps longer than they were in the workforce. Retirement was historically probably between five and ten years. Today, twenty and even thirty year retirements are not abnormal. It's much more difficult to fund such a lengthy retirement compared to a short one. We haven't figured out how to deal effectively with this problem as a society. Combine these lengthy retirements with stagnant to decreasing real income, increasing health care costs, and poor savings rates, we're headed toward meltdown.
I truly think that the pendulum is going to swing back the other way, as there simply isn't the money collectively to pay for all these lengthy retirements.
Absolutely. Changes have to be made, in everything from Medicare approvals on procedures to Medicaid availability for nursing home care to means testing for Aid to Dependent Families to tax breaks to individuals (estate taxes, income tax deductions, capital gains) and so forth.
We have all been enjoying living off the fatted calf but that cow done jumped over the moon when corporations decided to go global (and our job base disappeared). People haven't figure it out, I guess. You can't fill the coffers when folks don't have jobs. The only reason we don't have bread lines is because we have entitlements and subsidies. The fatted calf exists only in our imaginations and in the IOUs we have taken out with foreign governments. Our federal government is engaging in one huge Ponzi scheme and if anyone dares address it, they will get labeled immoral. Go figure. I thought spending money you don't have is immoral (and certainly fraudulent) but I guess there are different rules when you are working for (or represent) the federal government.
The fatted calf has been slaughtered and the sacred cows are being rounded up and heading for the slaughter pens. That includes Social Security and Medicare.
Only seven? Sounds like heaven!!! (no poem intended, LOL).
.
Well, only seven today. They had 6 until they decided they wanted a hospital district added last year or the year before.
Now they are into the light rail debates so they just might have 8 come the next election.
It upsets the locals but the transplants come from areas with much higher taxes so they think it's still cheap.
The problem is that once these entities are in place they never go away. And, as history shows, they just ask for more and more each year. Each one by itself isn't much but when all added up it comes to thousands.
Very good insight, TuborgP. Addressing fiscal issues is always unpleasant. No one wants to lose; and some issues/programs are sacred cows, as well. Voters will assess and yes, Time will Tell.
At a very cursory glance, NC has kind of been a "worse of both worlds" in my assumption. You have the low wages of Southern states, but some of the highest taxes for a red state in the South.
My brother lives on Long Island. He already knows he can't stay there when he retires.
Tells me it's a good thing he paid off his mortgage because his tax bill and insurance bill has taken its place.
You make a good point, it can be easier to move from some states because of high taxes than to move to another because of low taxes. Long Island, Jersey etc are easy to identify as high. Finding low and nice might not be as easy. I am fine with NC even if they go up some.
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Greater arrogance we will not find:
