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New Hampshire also has a dividend tax which can add up. Sometimes an affluent areas are fine with paying higher taxes. Somebody paying $10,000 on a home in West Hartford or Longmeadow on a house that is 4 to 50,000 are paying the same amount. Bought the people in Massachusetts would have a say on the override. Is there a guarantee that there is going to be an override it depends. Overrides can be deny it does happen. You don't have that ability in Connecticut because there is no method on the state level that forces municipalities to limit taxation increases. I know many people that would just like to have things local and if it means paying more in local property taxes then income taxes so be it. We also have to understand that we have to be Democratic with the processes of raising and lowering taxes sure. If you want to raise taxes but not everybody can afford it they can move out. There are places where elderly people are leaving. At the same point if you lowered taxes and the beneficiaries I just a small amount of people that might not be using services that's a significant policy debate. Personally I'm fine paying taxes but you have to have some limitation of Taxation and purchasing. If you want to buy something that's great but just show me the receipt what you got and what you paid for it. Even local government cannot be blind faith and blank checks
Of course Greenwich is in Connecticut, but I don’t agree with choosing the outlier town with the lowest taxes in the state to prove that Connecticut, as a whole, is not more tax burdened than Massachusetts. The equivalent would be the other side using Hartford or Bridgeport as an accurate example when they are also extreme outliers. I guess we will just have to agree to disagree on that.
But Greenwich is a choice buyers have when they are purchasing a home in our state. Why should you discount it? In that same vein, I could say that we should discount West Hartford because it’s taxes are higher and not truly reflective of other towns in our state. It goes both ways. Jay
Exactly. Hand picking similar this and that is irrelevant. Those wealthy towns have a much higher grand list total so they don’t need as high tax rate and therefore easier to find relative comps. A large percentage of CT is not FFC, so when you look at West Hartford, Glastonbury, Avon, Simsbury, Vernon etc they have wildly high taxes relative to the price of homes, regardless of how good schools are or amenities.
On the whole, under any rankings I’ve seen, CT is higher than MA, maybe not a ton higher, but higher.
If you want to consider affordability, house price, etc relative to tax paid, okay.
I had a friend buy a really nice house in NH, 2200 sq ft, 3 bed 2.5 bath and his property taxes are the same as my house in CT, my house being little smaller. His perception is that his taxes are really high but to me it’s reasonable because he pays no state income or sales tax. NH has high property taxes, but not much higher on avg than CT.
And yet I’ve given multiple examples of comparable homes in comparable towns with lower taxes. What about the examples I gave in Darien, New Canaan and Westport? Are they exempt for some made up reason? Is that reason because it calls into question what naysayers perceive is true?
I never said that homes of comparable price pay the same taxes. It doesn’t work that way when you have high prices. That’s because home prices aren’t similar in all metro areas but the costs of running a municipality are.
You mention towns in greater Hartford so let’s look at them. Everyone knows that West Hartford has high taxes, likely the highest for a Hartford suburb, but just how much higher are they than the examples I gave in Wellesley and Lexington? As a reminder, here are the examples I gave in Massachusetts, both have taxes over $10,000:
So here is a similar sized home on a similar sized lot in West Hartford. It’s taxes are $10,120. That’s only a few bucks higher than the Wellesley and Lexington homes. Is that made up? Is that wrong?
I get that people think this is high but buyers do have options if taxes are that important. They can simply head to Farmington for lower taxes. This house is about the same size but on a much larger lot. It’s taxes are just $6,349.
Jay,
Out of curiosity, do you disagree with this type of analysis?
[url]https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.usatoday.com/amp/111375916[/url]
MA rank 18 and CT rank 6
Or this?
[url]https://taxfoundation.org/how-high-are-property-taxes-in-your-state-2020/[/url]
Both clearly stated that CT property taxes are more than MA. I appreciate the examples you dig out, but I can’t find any objective analysis that proves your point on a statewide level. Yes, sure you can find examples of where CT has a similar size house in town A with taxes lower than a town B in MA but it seems like you are trying very hard to harp on this “CT taxes are not as bad” point that quantitatively just doesn’t bear out. It’s one thing and not that important overall so I won’t comment on it anymore. Your point of “if taxes matter than shop around” is valid especially if you don’t have children in schools.
Both clearly stated that CT property taxes are more than MA. I appreciate the examples you dig out, but I can’t find any objective analysis that proves your point on a statewide level. Yes, sure you can find examples of where CT has a similar size house in town A with taxes lower than a town B in MA but it seems like you are trying very hard to harp on this “CT taxes are not as bad” point that quantitatively just doesn’t bear out. It’s one thing and not that important overall so I won’t comment on it anymore. Your point of “if taxes matter than shop around” is valid especially if you don’t have children in schools.
If you look back, I posted why The Tax Foundation analysis is flawed. Both of these linksare about their analysis.
I’m not saying Connecticut has low taxes but Massachusetts really doesn’t either. And from what I see comparable homes in comparable communities there pay as much, if not more than Connecticut.
I think where these analyses get tripped up is that some state’s have a lot more small towns where taxes are lower to offset the bigger towns where taxes are more. Just look at the rankings. How many highly ranked are small urbanized state? Not many, if any. New York proves that. It’s Westchester, Nassau and Suffolk Counties and New York City have some of the highest taxes in the country yet New York State ranks up there for low taxes. Jay
Back to this thread, I went through a few sites and everything I saw shows Connecticut as one of the states with the highest property taxes, although always behind New Jersey. The surprising thing about Connecticut is the taxes are so high without any County government whatsover, if Connecticut had County government it would even be worse.
Speaking of counties, what makes this thread even more confusing is that a large portion of county revenue in New York (and I am guessing many other states) does not come from real estate taxes! Suffolk County for instance gets more than half its revenue from sales taxes. Other revenue comes from state and federal aid (in New York, in addition to providing direct aid, the state pays it's counties to carry out certain functions). https://www.newsday.com/long-island/...-22-1.50279103
So, this has to be of the most confusing topics - trying to compare different mill rates, assessed property values and then realizing that different states have different rules, simply makes comparing one state to another pretty difficult. And then I realized that counties do not even get most of their revenue from real estate, again at least in New York.
I like that CT eliminates county government to an extent. But it does add other layers of tax that some places do not have. Like the dreaded vehicle tax which helps fund towns and gives the perception of lower property taxes. I feel the vehicle tax limits commerce, or encourages tax avoidance behavior. I know I delayed the purchase of a new car until I left the area mainly because of the vehicle tax.
Also some regional government can be good. I recently relocated to NJ from CT and my taxes are lower per $ of value believe it or not. And I am the same distance from the city as I was in CT. We do have county and town government, however the county does provide some shared services like parks and a library system. Is there a need for Darien to have a state of the art library along with Norwalk, Stamford, and New Canaan? Seems redundant.
I like that CT eliminates county government to an extent. But it does add other layers of tax that some places do not have. Like the dreaded vehicle tax which helps fund towns and gives the perception of lower property taxes. I feel the vehicle tax limits commerce, or encourages tax avoidance behavior. I know I delayed the purchase of a new car until I left the area mainly because of the vehicle tax.
Also some regional government can be good. I recently relocated to NJ from CT and my taxes are lower per $ of value believe it or not. And I am the same distance from the city as I was in CT. We do have county and town government, however the county does provide some shared services like parks and a library system. Is there a need for Darien to have a state of the art library along with Norwalk, Stamford, and New Canaan? Seems redundant.
Are the homes comparable in size, lots and community? I ind it hard to believe they are. That’s been my point. Jay
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