Tax and financial questions - thinking of relocating for job offer (m) (Murray: for sale)

[jeinpa]

I'm sorry if these questions were answered previously but it is taking so much time wading through posts - I appreciate your help!!

We are thinking of relocating from PA for a potential job offer and need info to determine if financially we can swing this. I'd like to be able to stay at home at least initially to get the kids and family acclimated, so we are in major budget analysis mode!

State taxes - in PA 3% Utah is 5% is this correct?

School or property taxes? Here we have a local county/municipal tax that on our 300K house is 1600 a year and school taxes are $6400 on top of that. Do you have local/school/property taxes there in the Salt Lake area?

We looked online at cost of living calculators and it appears similar - just the tax question is huge for us.

Any other unexpected expenses for those of you that relocated?

Thanks in advance for your replies!!

Julie

[SouthernBelleInUtah]

If you get an older house with a swamp cooler, your summer elec bill bill be about $60. Winter heating gas bill, on 12-mo averging plan so it is $72/mo year round. My taxes on a tax appraisel of $345K are about $2800. Don't know how it is broken down but I only get one tax bill from the city.

[skibarbie]

The property tax in Utah includes $$ for the school districts. That being said, Utah spends less per student than any other state and still manages to do a decent job with educating the kids. Parent volunteer seems to be the stop gap measure here.
We are in the Granite School District and our taxes are between .7 and .8 % of assessed value. A new school district started up this season and in the area that it cover-not positive about exact area-but big property tax increase. Be sure and ask you real estate agent about these new taxes!
We moved down to SLC from Park City a little over a year ago-installed AC-and the highest electric bill in the summer was $130. Swamp cooler did not even come close to cutting it for me! Less in the winter but we heat with natural gas and that goes up-maybe $200 for the gas a month. This is the winter that we are going to learn to be less warm!
Nothing really surprised me moving to Utah from Oklahoma when it comes down to $$ things.
Good luck and I love it here..

[SouthernBelleInUtah]

Yeah, swamp coolers are really best for older houses that were built w/them in mind. My house is a square with the cooler in the middle. I also use ceiling fans occasionally. It's so dry in the worst of the summer that I sometimes have to turn it off b/c I get too cold!

[US-Traveller]

Pennyslvania has a flat state income tax of 3.07%, with no personal exemptions. Utah has a flat state income tax of 5.00%. Utah is widely regarded for having one of the best corporate and personal income tax structures in the nation along with Virginia.

Property taxes are probably considerably lower than what you experience in Pennsylvania. Property taxes vary by locality and there is no way to determine them without checking with the village, township, or city in which the property is located.

The overall cost of living in Utah is most likely going to be lower than Pennsylvania, especially if you see an income increase.

[jeinpa]

Originally Posted by US-Traveller

Pennyslvania has a flat state income tax of 3.07%, with no personal exemptions. Utah has a flat state income tax of 5.00%. Utah is widely regarded for having one of the best corporate and personal income tax structures in the nation along with Virginia.

Property taxes are probably considerably lower than what you experience in Pennsylvania. Property taxes vary by locality and there is no way to determine them without checking with the village, township, or city in which the property is located.

The overall cost of living in Utah is most likely going to be lower than Pennsylvania, especially if you see an income increase.

thank you all for your answers, it confirms what I thought, but wasn't sure if I was missing something along the line. I appreciate it! Flying in for last interview on Thursday!

Take care and have a great weekend!

[sp2007]

I would add, as someone who lived in PA but now lives in UT, that its a great state. Its not PA, so not much green scenery, but the beauty of the mountains are awesome. Also, they have 4 seasons that don't seem as severe as PA. No humidity.

Where are you planning on living?

[jeinpa]

Originally Posted by sp2007

I would add, as someone who lived in PA but now lives in UT, that its a great state. Its not PA, so not much green scenery, but the beauty of the mountains are awesome. Also, they have 4 seasons that don't seem as severe as PA. No humidity.

Where are you planning on living?

That is good to hear? We still are waiting to see if my husband gets a good offer so we are not sure where to move. We would like a neighborhood with children for our 9 and 10 year old. But we also have thought about moving to a place where we could have a horse or two (or 3 or 4, LOL).

We are thinking North of the city we found a house online in Roy but that is almost an hour commute so maybe too far? I was looking at a job online at Primary Children's - do you know anything about the employment climate there? DH would be working downtown. We probably wouldn't move the entire family until June so they could finish out this school year, we would have to sell our home here, etc. So he would likely go out and rent (cheaply, LOL) until we arrive, then we would probably rent for a year to make sure we like the schools/area etc.

I'm open for suggestions. One of our main concerns is special education programming. Our daughter has Down Syndrome and is in regular classes here with a full-time aide and pull out for one on one help in math and some language arts. So we feel inclusion in a regular school for her right now is important - plus it doesn't make her feel so excluded from the neighborhood kids either.

Thanks for the input! I'm getting excited, I hope he gets the job or I'm gonna be sad!

[Poqui]

Good luck in your interview. You should come check out my city of Murray. My neighborhood is excellent and there are a couple houses for sale right now that are a steal for the area. We live in the river bottoms by 5400 South.

I have two children in special needs in our school and they are being attended really well.