Tax Burden in Retirement - Anything Better Than SmartAsset Calculators?

[clobber]

Looking at way to compare the total tax burden in retirement of various locations. Best I can find is outlined below. I don't guess there is a tool that combines this all togehter?

1) SmartAsset Retirement Taxes After you select a state and zipcode it seems to be reasonably accurate on calculating Federal, State, and Local taxes on most forms of income (Pension, SS, IRA Withdrawl, and Pensions).

2) https://smartasset.com/taxes/property-taxes SmartAsset Property Taxes Give it a zipcode and get property tax.

3) SmartAsset Capital Gains Calculator Give it a zip code and some information on the asset, get an estimate of federal, state, and local tax for capital gains.

4) Sales Tax - not really finding anything great. There is a some data here on SmartAsset and you can get a bit of a comparison by hovering over each county.

 

[pb4uski]

https://www.irscalculators.com/tax-calculator will calculate federal and state income taxes (and SS taxes if you have wages).

 

[braumeister]

2) https://smartasset.com/taxes/property-taxes SmartAsset Property Taxes Give it a zipcode and get property tax.

I'd take that one with a big grain of salt. I just looked at my location and it wasn't even close.

 

[clobber]

I'd take that one with a big grain of salt. I just looked at my location and it wasn't even close.

I was wondering. For the one location I know about, it was accurate (even to the local).

 

[Gumby]

I'd take that one with a big grain of salt. I just looked at my location and it wasn't even close.

For my town, real property taxes are actually 22% higher than the website says. We also have car taxes in Connecticut, which are the current NADA bluebook value times the mill rate for your specific town. We have older and cheaper cars, so that's only another $1000/year for us, but if you have two brand new Mercedes here, it'll cost you plenty. Those car taxes are paid to the town when you pay your real property tax.

I think it is worth paying the taxes to live here and I would never move somewhere just for tax savings. However, if tax savings are an important factor in your relocation decision, you should do a lot more research than one aggregating website that does not appear to be accurate.

So, for example, if I were seriously contemplating moving to Connecticut, I would go to the Department of Revenue Services website and download the Form 1040-CT and instructions, and I would run my actual financial situation to see what my state income taxes would be. From the same site, I'd find out about the sales tax and what that applies to (just about everything but food and prescription drugs.). I'd find out about the about the car taxes and I'd learn just how local property taxes are calculated (short version -- assessed value, which is generally 70% of market value, times mill rate, which varies by town). I'd find out the mill rates for towns in which I might be interested and do my own calculations for the property I was looking at. (Zillow can help here, because it shows assessed value history).

 

[pb4uski]

I'd take that one with a big grain of salt. I just looked at my location and it wasn't even close.

+1 for our Florida condo it was less than half of our actual property tax bill. It was 13% low for our Vermont property.

 

[Out-to-Lunch]

1) SmartAsset Retirement Taxes After you select a state and zipcode it seems to be reasonably accurate on calculating Federal, State, and Local taxes on most forms of income (Pension, SS, IRA Withdrawl, and Pensions).

For my state (Wisconsin), the site reports:

Public pension income is not taxed, and private pension income is fully taxed.

But the non-taxation for public pensions only holds if you started in the pension system in 1963 or earlier. (That is the year I was born!) So I would advise checking on item (1).

 

[Out of Steam]

For my state (Wisconsin), the site reports:

But the non-taxation for public pensions only holds if you started in the pension system in 1963 or earlier. (That is the year I was born!) So I would advise checking on item (1).

North Carolina has a similar provision, but the effective date is in the 1980s, which I would have met.

 

[Out of Steam]

I've noticed that such tax calculators often miss the local income tax "piggyback" add-on in Maryland. In most counties it is over 2%, essentially from the first dollar of income.

 

[FANOFJESUS]

https://www.irscalculators.com/tax-calculator will calculate federal and state income taxes (and SS taxes if you have wages).

Use that one all the time.

 

[USGrant1962]

I've noticed that such tax calculators often miss the local income tax "piggyback" add-on in Maryland. In most counties it is over 2%, essentially from the first dollar of income.

Yup, it is actually 3% plus or minus in most counties. Lots of tax calculators and tax maps show MD as ~5% state income tax for mid-income folks. Nope, north of 8% is more accurate. And the first three brackets are $1K, $2K, and $3K - why do they bother?

Setting that specific example aside, if you have any complexity at all in your tax situation (and lots of people do due to tax credits at lower incomes and phase-outs and stealth taxes at higher incomes) you are best off using last year's tax software (fed and state) to run models.

 

[Dash man]

I'd take that one with a big grain of salt. I just looked at my location and it wasn't even close.

It calculated taxes less than half my actual amount using assessed value. Using market value it is closer, but a little high.

 

[braumeister]

FWIW, this seems to be a fairly decent way to see property taxes by county, at least in ballpark range. You can look at either dollars or percent of home value. Several years out of date now, but not outrageously off.

https://money.cnn.com/interactive/real-estate/property-tax/

 

[VanWinkle]

My favorite for federal taxes.

https://www.mortgagecalculator.org/calcs/1040-calculator.php

 

[Out of Steam]

Yup, it is actually 3% plus or minus in most counties. Lots of tax calculators and tax maps show MD as ~5% state income tax for mid-income folks. Nope, north of 8% is more accurate. And the first three brackets are $1K, $2K, and $3K - why do they bother?

It was in my head as about 2.5%, probably a memory from when I first moved to the state in the early '90s. I hadn't realized that it was over 3%.

We left for Virginia to retire in 2019. Our taxes are lower here mainly because of old cars and lower housing prices. Personal property tax on new cars could close most of the ~2.5% difference in income tax rate.

 

[RetMD21]

My favorite for federal taxes.

https://www.mortgagecalculator.org/calcs/1040-calculator.php

It's way more detailed than most and differentiated ordinary and qualified dividends and even allowed for foreign tax credit, thanks

 

[jazz4cash]

I've noticed that such tax calculators often miss the local income tax "piggyback" add-on in Maryland. In most counties it is over 2%, essentially from the first dollar of income.

It calculates my local MD taxes based on the zip code entered. It is in the ballpark at least. It does not capture the MD pension exclusion and i don’t think it accounts for SS income not being taxed.

 

[Winemaker]

Currently I am dealing with DM's estate. DM was 86, lived in PA, like all of her children. DF and DM has paid no income tax on her retirement income since he/she was 65, only on their taxable investments. Had DM had to pay state INCOME tax on her yearly income, it would have been significantly more the the 4.5% inheritance tax paid on her estate now. Kudos to PA for the time being.