On the other hand, there is no State or local Income Tax, and that savings will pay a lot of property taxes.
So9
Where I live, in PA, we have a RE tax of $1600, a local income tax of 2%, a state income tax of 1%, a sales tax of 6% and a few nuisance taxes -- an occupation tax (mine is $400, most are lower) and a per capita tax of $10. Students and unemployed are exempt from the occupation tax. Medal of Honor winners are exempt from the RE tax -- that exemption doesn't apply to me.
Thus where I live there is roughly $2000 non income based taxes. That leaves $9000 to be made up in sales and income taxes. Now a sales tax is like an income tax, for one's purchases rise with one's income. Net income, tht is, and not everything one spends on is sales taxed. But for estimating let's use a figure of 1/3 of one's gross goes out again in purchases that are subject to sales tax, that probably overestimates ths sales tax, but its close enough. A 6% sales tax is thus equivalent to a 2% income tax. So Pennsy has an effective income tax (income and sales inclusive) of 4% -- to use round figures. Add my !% local income tax, and the total effective state and local income tax is 5%.
That means my household (my wife and I) would have to gross 20 X 9000, or $180,000 in income to be equivalent to the San Antonio tax rate.
That's very HIGH. Old folks, unemployed folks, retired folks most definitely can not live there. I am mystified at such a high tax rate -- how, politically, can it sustain?