Are DFW property taxes really higher than the rest of the country? (foreclosure, car registration)

[UNT_Eagle]

So, I'm curious, what would the property taxes be for a 130k home in Denton County, Denton city limits? $4-5000/yr? I was thinking a little less than that. Guess I should do some more investigating.

[D-Towner]

I would guess around $2200-$2800.

[usc619]

Originally Posted by aceplace

No. There is no Federal tax credit for a state income tax.

The only saving grace is that the money you pay to the state is not taxed at the Federal level. On the other hand, residents of states such as Texas with no state income tax can take an income deduction on the total amount they spent on sales taxes. If they cannot document the sales taxes, they can take a theoretical amount based on annual income.

It is true that your California house is not periodically reassessed to a higher value. Once you buy it, the purchase price is the permanent assessed value, until you sell it. This freezes your tax payment, but it locks you into that house. If you need to move to take another job somewhere else, you will buy another house and pay property tax based on the current sales price.

Thus, California property taxes are not collected impartially. People who have lived in the same house for a long time pay less than their average share, but those who must move, or want to upgrade their housing, pay much more than their share. This is one economic and social dislocation that we in Texas are spared from, thank God.

Let's say you get laid off or take a pay cut, then your income taxes will be lower in CA. In Texas your property taxes will not adjust because you didn't make as much money as did the year before, in fact it may increase due to what the county thinks your home is worth LOL. I think the Texas property tax system is a big ripoff.

[yjc281]

Originally Posted by usc619

Let's say you get laid off or take a pay cut, then your income taxes will be lower in CA.

If you live in CA in an recently bought house of equivalent size, you would still pay the same property tax if not more. That doesn't change whether you are laid off or not. There is no free lunch. If you want a well funded school district, someone has to pay for it one way or another. If you don't own a house, you still have to pay your rent even if you are laid off. In TX if you don't want to pay property taxes you can be a renter. In some cases it may make more sense to some people.
The CA tax system is the real rip-off. It costs way too much money just for being close to the beach.

I just remembered a story about a liberal Californian in SF. He didn't want his taxes going to fund the Iraq war so he asked his boss to cut his salary from 100k to 40k in order not to pay taxes. He was fired as a result. He got exactly what he wanted. There are always ways around taxes, isn't it?

[lh_newbie]

Originally Posted by D-Towner

Are you not able to write your state income tax off your federal income tax?

So, it's OK to pay higher taxes if you can get 28% of them back somewhere else? Tell you what - you give me $10K, and at the end of the year, I'll give you $2800 back. What a bargain! Incidentally, you also get to deduct (not write-off) your property taxes, so your position just doesn't hold water. Incidentally, if you deduct state income tax - you can't deduct local sales taxes like we can in Texas.

[aceplace]

Originally Posted by usc619

Let's say you get laid off or take a pay cut, then your income taxes will be lower in CA. In Texas your property taxes will not adjust because you didn't make as much money as did the year before, in fact it may increase due to what the county thinks your home is worth LOL. I think the Texas property tax system is a big ripoff.

I don't think that is much consolation to those who are losing pay or their jobs.

What do you say...? "Look on the bright side... yes, you may have to live in a homeless shelter, but, by golly, you won't have to pay state income taxes"!

The Texas property tax system is more equitable, since everyone is paying their fair share. If they live in a house of a given valuation, they pay the same tax. You don't have the gross disparity of valuations as California, where the tax burden is shared unequally.

Let's assume two individuals, each earning the same salary, and with the same number of deductions, exemptions, circumstances. One pays a state income tax of $5,000, the other pays $7,500. That comes about, hypothetically, because when one of them first went to work for the company, he started at $32,000 per year. The other is a new hire at $50,000. And for some bizzare reason, the state taxes the income as of the date of hire.

Would you say that is an equitable tax system? Well, neither is the California property tax system with roughly the same features.

Oh yes, if you can't afford the property taxes on your house, you should find a cheaper one you can afford. You probably can't afford the mortgage either.

[lwnj]

DFW property tax is low compare to where I live. Those nice 4 bedroom, 2.5 bath single family homes in DFW, from what I can tell on the internet, would be $4K in tax. The same house would easily cost $10K-$12K in tax in New Jersey. If you are more than 10 days late in paying the property tax, the township will send you threatening notice saying they will aution off your house to get the property tax payment. They certainly don't care if you lost your job, had a car accident or lying in your death bed. Many elderly whose houses are paid off still need to move because they simply can't afford the tax. Even something modest (1500 sq ft, 20 years old house) can cost $7K in tax.
On top of that, NJ residents pay state income tax AND 7% sales tax. So TX residents are blessed!

[aceplace]

As we see from the numbers for property tax amount versus level of income, the percent of income going to local governments is similar between Texas and California

What is additionally interesting, from numbers gathered elsewhere, is that the total tax burden from Federal state and local governments is higher in California. Yet the state and local governments in Cali cannot afford to fund their programs. They had a 40 billion dollar deficit this year alone. This might tell us that the level of income in Cali is not high enough. It needs to be a lot higher to compensate for the costs of running the governments. Basically, the state has a higher income, but even higher costs, resulting in greater poverty and deprivation than Texas, especially among the middle class, the segment that actually keeps the motors and gears of civilization turning.

Third world countries such as India and China are rapidly raising their standard of consumption by energizing a growing middle class. Apparently, California is going in the opposite direction.

[aceplace]

Originally Posted by lwnj

DFW property tax is low compare to where I live. Those nice 4 bedroom, 2.5 bath single family homes in DFW, from what I can tell on the internet, would be $4K in tax. The same house would easily cost $10K-$12K in tax in New Jersey. If you are more than 10 days late in paying the property tax, the township will send you threatening notice saying they will aution off your house to get the property tax payment. They certainly don't care if you lost your job, had a car accident or lying in your death bed. Many elderly whose houses are paid off still need to move because they simply can't afford the tax. Even something modest (1500 sq ft, 20 years old house) can cost $7K in tax.
On top of that, NJ residents pay state income tax. So TX residents are blessed!

Lets look at some New Jersey figures. This is the percentage of annual income that goes to pay property taxes.

Camden county 7.1%
Gloucester county 6.1%
Burlington county 6.0%
Essex county 8.1%
Mercer county 6.3%
Warren county 7.0%
Hunterdon county 7.5%
Passaic county 8.5%

I'm not cherry picking these numbers... they are literally successive examples from scanning for New Jersey.

I don't think the mobster Tony Soprano makes as much out of his territory as the NJ counties seem to...

[stan4]

I do like the high property tax bc it does reflect on how much you SPEND not how much you MAKE!

This sums it up right here for me. Give me the property tax every day. I'd rather choose to spend less money than to have to dumb myself down and make less income.