Retiring: lowest tax burden Texas or Florida?

[Leonidas]

Official answer. Looks like FL wins but they both are good.

How High Is Your Tax Burden? - Forbes.com

Cool tool to play with - moving the slider back and forth.

And look at little New Hampshire being all below national average and all.

 

[Nords]

Official answer. Looks like FL wins but they both are good.
How High Is Your Tax Burden? - Forbes.com

I miss the ol' Bloomberg "Wealth Management" tax surveys. They'd break it down by workers, retirees, and various types of taxes (payroll/investments/property). Hawaii retirees usually came out pretty good in those rankings.

Our kid will have very low taxes while she's at college, but once she starts getting those humongous O-1 paychecks in 2014 she's going to get a nasty tax surprise.

 

[Orchidflower]

Budget problems in Texas...

"The Employee Retirement System of Texas fired off an early warning to lawmakers on Wednesday that it will need an additional $400 million to $700 million in the next budget for its health care program"


Yes, the mentally ill in Texas walk around. The county facility will accept them if they're a threat to themselves or others (sometimes the call comes too late...) and they'll be given some drugs and released after a few weeks. Yes, this is a sad state of affairs.

OK, this is what I was hearing about a few days ago. A $400-700 million hickey is mighty big even for Texas.

I think the mentally ill are on every other corner begging in innercity Houston it seemed when I was there. Since you saw a different person each day, I wonder if they sign up for a corner or how this works? And, more importantly, why does the city of Houston allow it? Leonidas...do you know?
Never give any of the bums a dollar...except a lady bum with two dogs I saw one day with her shopping cart. I just looked at her thinking, "there but for the grace of God go I." I can handle the men bums...but a woman out there really got to me. I just wondered how many times she's raped a week or pushed around out there. How sad there is no place to put these people for food and shelter permanently.

 

[Leonidas]

I think the mentally ill are on every other corner begging in innercity Houston it seemed when I was there. Since you saw a different person each day, I wonder if they sign up for a corner or how this works? And, more importantly, why does the city of Houston allow it? Leonidas...do you know?

Simple answer is that the majority of the citizenry can't be bothered with it, don't want to pay the additional taxes needed to establish an effective system, and politicians don't want to strain themselves so they only swat at low-hanging fruit - and this issue is much higher than they care to extend themselves. I hit it pretty good last year in this post: http://www.early-retirement.org/forums/f27/help-suicide-note-on-craigslist-46083-2.html#post852211

Now, as to the case of the mentally ill who come to the attention of the police, it's a slightly different story: When their behavior disrupts society's peaceful repose, we immediately dispatch a highly trained mental health care professional with a PhD in psychology and years of experience in treating the mentally ill. He/She is accompanied by a team of healtchare professionals, a pharmacist ready with medication if needed, and a social worker to find the appropriate setting for the individual in his/her time of need. 24/7/365 these folks are standing by ready to be launched out into the dark to fix...er...no. No. No, that's not what we do.

Sorry, I confused reality with something that made sense. I'll try to keep that from happening again.

No, we send a couple of 26 year-olds with associates degrees and limited experience in dealing with the mentally ill, and almost no training in diagnosing or treating them. They look around and see no psychologist, pharmacist or social worker. What tools did we give them to fix the problem? A gun, a metal baton, a set of handcuffs and a cage in the backseat of their car. Are they specialists in dealing with sick individuals? No, but they have tons of experience in confronting violent, combative, intoxicated and uncooperative people, and just oodles of experience in applying physical force to those same people who say "NO!" to requests for cooperation and compliance. Cops are by training, nature and experience, perfectly suited for turning, "No" into "Yessss ow, ow, Okay, okay, I quit! Please stop! I said yes dammit! Yes!"

Is it any wonder that hardly a year passes around here in which a mentally disturbed person doesn't die during a confrontation with the police?

Society is sending a message. It doesn't want the mentally ill in institutions, and prefers them out in the population where they all live happy productive lives while their illness is controlled by medication and therapy. Except that is not what always happens. They stop taking their medications, they can't afford them, they self-medicate with booze or drugs, etc.

Now, if the person's behavior rises to the level where they are demonstrably a danger to themselves or another, then they can be involuntarily committed to a mental health care facility. If you can convince a magistrate with your articulation of the facts. And if there is space available. Then of course the hold is only for 24-hours at the most, and 90% of the time they are released back into the same environment from which they failed.

And the people who are having less serious problems, are homeless, or are in situations that are not healthy? Well, the cops all have a nice list of names and phone numbers of shelters intended to help those folks. Except, they're already full and refuse to take any newcomers, "maybe next month" is the best you get. Unless a caring family member will take the person in, the only other alternative is to arrest them for one of the offenses designed to keep Bob the Bum at bay. But you help with one hand by getting them off the street and simultaneously hurt them by putting them into the giant uncaring criminal justice system. If there was some real help available to them in jail that might make it worth it, but that is so seldom the case. So, they get told "stay off the street" and are left to do their thing until the police get called again. It follows the philosophy of, "if you can't make it better, be damn sure you don't do something that makes it worse."

So, society sends the wrong people out to do the job and equips and trains them for near certain failure, and then provides them with almost no viable alternatives. Society doesn't want to help these people, it just wants to keep them out of too much mischief. Stay out of the way of the working folks all you crazy people.

The good news is that efforts are being made to improve the situation, and I can't recall any recent killings of mentally disturbed individuals that have shocked the conscience. It all comes down to money in the end, and folks around here think they pay enough in taxes and politicians haven't been struggling to overcome that.

 

[Rustic23]

I worked Downtown Houston for 8 years till 2005. I was never approached by a beggar. San Francisco, however, was another question. Almost every day on the way to work, at lunch, and going home!

 

[ziggy29]

I worked Downtown Houston for 8 years till 2005. I was never approached by a beggar. San Francisco, however, was another question. Almost every day on the way to work, at lunch, and going home!

In Houston, almost all of the panhandlers are in the median strips of major intersections.

 

[Rustic23]

That is true, many between the age of 30-50 with a 'Vietnam Vet' sign! An 18 yr old pfc serving in Viet Nam would be 55 this year!

 

[Katsmeow]

One type of tax to try to avoid in Texas is MUD taxes which are usually in regular residential subdivisions. When we lived in a subdivision near houston MUD taxes were very high. We have found it far cheaper to live in an area with septic so there are no MUD taxes. That usually comes with a well so no water. Of course you do have to pay to maintain the septic and well but that has been much less than MUD taxes would be.

We recently bought our downsized retirement home in a neighboring county to Houston. We are within 10 minutes of most amenities we could ever want, no MUD taxes and property taxes are not low but not horrible either...will be about $3500 on a $200k home. Insurance costs vary depending upon deductible and coverage wanted. We elected a coverage that is about $1100 a year. It was interesting to me that the quote went down by $200 once I indicated we did not have a mortgage. To have mortgagee coverage increased the quote by $200.

 

[ziggy29]

It was interesting to me that the quote went down by $200 once I indicated we did not have a mortgage. To have mortgagee coverage increased the quote by $200.

I've never heard of this. I wonder what the actuarial justification is? That with no mortgage, you can't go "underwater" on the property and thus have less incentive to torch it for the insurance money?

 

[rescueme]

Official answer. Looks like FL wins but they both are good.

How High Is Your Tax Burden? - Forbes.com

The problem with this site is that it does not show adjusted tax rates for retirees, along with "age benefits" (such as local tax rebates for seniors, and reduced charges for services - such as trash pickup, as we receive).

For instance, I live in a state (neither Florida nor Texas) in which I pay no income tax - state or local, for my retirement income which includes SS, pensions, SPIA, and IRA withdrawls. That alone gives me over a 4% advantage (of income taxes I don't pay).

Using the chart, I'm actually under both FL & TX on total taxes paid; however since neither FL or TX shows retiree actual tax rates, it's difficult to say if I am actually "tax advantaged".

For a pre-retiree, who is still working it is probably a good view. However for those in retirement, it really does not show the entire tax/service charge picture, IMHO...

 

[Rustic23]

Here is a site worth looking at:

US Home Prices and USA Heat Map - Trulia Real Estate Search - Trulia.com

While Taxes are an on going expense, I would think housing cost would be a consideration. Problem here is it does not give rural prices.

This one breaks it down a little bit:

CNN/Money: The hottest zip codes

and it looks like Killeen Texas is the winner. That price still seems high for rural Texas towns. Killeen is the home of Ft Hood, one of the Army's largest forts.

 

[IndependentlyPoor]

and it looks like Killeen Texas is the winner.

Killeen!!??!!

This illustrates the danger of simple minded ratings. Sometimes the market is trying to tell you something when houses are cheap... Nobody wants to live there!

Apologies to Killeen members.

 

[chrisjul]

Familiar with both and currently retired in FL.....with all due respect to Texans on board, I don't think personally that they are in the same ballpark....I have lived all over FL and like it all.....I recommend FL. Quality of life; climate, etc is the key.

 

[MichaelB]

Killeen!!??!!

This illustrates the danger of simple minded ratings. Sometimes the market is trying to tell you something when houses are cheap... Nobody wants to live there!

Apologies to Killeen members.

I guess that would be one difference between cheap and inexpensive.