South Dakota Overall Tax Burden vs Other Places (Rapid City, Brookings: sales, school)

[OKC123]

The tax foundation usually ranks South Dakota pretty far down the list on OVERALL tax burden. In this case, lower on the list is good.

From the best I can tell, Wisconsin ranks usually in the top 5 of highest overall tax burden states, depending on the year.

I roughly calculated the difference in overall taxes of SD vs WI based on the tax foundation information.

If you lived in WI for the next 20 years, it would cost about $27,000 more than living in SD.

Assuming the tax difference between SD and WI remains about the same for the next 20 years.

For those of you who have lived elsewhere in the US, and moved to South Dakota, do you feel it is less costly overall?

[uncleharley]

Yes, it is much less than Wi. My wife and I moved to Hot Springs, SD from central Wisconsin about 2.5 years ago. We feel that the difference in property taxes, sales taxes, & income taxes totals about $8000 per yr for us. It is difficult to compare property taxes state to state because property taxes vary from county to county and municipality to municipality, however I lived in what was considered to be a low tax county in wisc. I don't know what the tax foundation bases their calculations on, but I would find another way to figure the difference.

uh

[ElkHunter]

As Uncleharley says, it's difficult to assess the differences when it comes to property taxes, because each county, or even each municipality is different.

Some county's have a website where you can view assessed values and tax burdens, but, you have to either know the owners name, tax id, address, etc... to find out what the burden is. Most county's in South Dakota do not have anything listed other than an address of where to pay your taxes.

I moved out of South Dakota due to the taxes that I had to pay. It was much cheaper to move up to Wyoming, but, I lived in Pennington County, in the Black Hills. Our tax burden went from about $800 per year, to about $3500 a year, in a 3 year time period. Taxes sky rocketed. They said it was because Rapid City was expanding in that direction and the taxes had to be increased to pay for ammenities such as fire hydraunts, street lights, signs, etc... Keep in mind that we lived almost 18 miles out of town. That was back in the 90's and to this day there are no street lights, fire hydraunts, etc... They did put up some better street signs.

Like I say, I moved out, and it wasn't a simple matter of just moving to a different county, job requirements and quality of life had to be counted for too.

I did find that Wyoming was considerably cheaper than South Dakota.

[sholomar]

Every road in Wisconsin is paved, while very few in South Dakota are paved. Wages are typically more in Wisconsin... they are substantially higher for certain fields such as pharmacists, teachers, and registered nurses. The school systems are good. The terrain and topography and climate are naturally more attractive (unless you are in the black hills or badlands)... the population density is higher and there is more to do... You do get something for your money there.

Yeah it's nice not having to pay a state income tax here. If I did, I'd want to see something from it... since south dakota is a sparsely populated state with not a lot going on.

Property taxes 'can' be high to compensate.. they are fairly high in Brookings. There are a couple of good paying jobs in town to more than compensate though. I wouldn't want to spend my life at one of the lower paying places in town though. I'd also leave if I had a 'live anywhere' carrier job such as the ones listed above.

I like Rapid, but I've heard it's starting to get expensive because wealthy people flock to that area and drive up the prices? It's also fairly isolated, really out there away from any substantially populated areas.. but it's pretty, and arguably has one of the best climates in the United States, along with Western Nebraska, parts of Wyoming, and eastern Colorado.