Looking at moving my family to Utah this summer.  I'm LDS and my wife is from Cedar City but we haven't lived in Utah (SLC) since I graduated from UofU in 1999.



If you could chose to live in South Jordan or American Fork, would you have any preferences?  My 2nd oldest is in band and i hear AF band is tops in the state so we are wanting to have him attend there if possible (trying to figure out AFHS boundaries).  I've heard Lone Peak High School has issues with pills (Oxy) from a therapist that works with kids in that school.  My wife sees a great charter school in South Jordan she wants to look at.  My office is in Lehi but I work from home 90% of the time and probably prefer UT county over SLC.



Also how do state income taxes work there?  I was a student last time I was in Utah.  Specifically does UT base income tax off my listed W2 Gross or my adjusted amount after deductions?



Lastly, how does my NFA trust transfer to UT from TX?  Just change the address on it next time I buy something?  It was one of those online $199 Trusts I got for cheap.

Well, if you're talking high school, AF is a great choice (my wife graduated from there in 1991). But Lone Peak isn't bad. I'm sure there are Oxy problems at both. AF does have an awesome band. I lived in South Jordan for my first year when we moved back to the city from southern Utah. I liked it a lot.


Driving over the point of the mountain at 7-9A and 4-6P every day sucks. A lot. They're widening the road right now to 6 lanes each way, but it's a big construction mess right now.

For state taxes, they take your Federal AGI and multiple it by 5%. This gives you the tax amount. Then there are some exemptions which are added to your federal standard deduction or itemized deductions. There are also some income-based phaseouts.

After deductions and such, my tax rate was 4.85%.

Don't know about the trust, although I do have a Utah-based NFA trust.




 



Now having said all of that and as an active LDS family, I have to say that Utah Valley (Happy Valley) is one of the weirdest places on Earth. Concentric circles of weirdness radiate out from BYU ("where the campus is our world"). I would go crazy living there.






I'm in Draper.



 
 

We did a thread recently about soem of these topics. I just sold a home in Lehi and moved to SJ. Utah County is handling the growth explosion poorly. Too much high density housing, pop up strip malls with very little parking, and 450K homes with 2 yards of sod on the side of each home .

If I had lots of money I wouldn't mind Alpine though. I would also have to consider if I had a good relationship with my kids and had control over my home being the "cool" home with stuff for my kids to do with friends there.

I'm also LDS and thought it was strange in UT County. I really disliked having my ward boundary being literally the 1/4 mile long street I lived on. Very nosy people. I'm the last person you will find praising diversity, but there's something to be said for having more of it.

I live in Saratoga Springs.  With the office in Lehi, I'd stay in Utah county.  Property taxes are lower here than up in SL county as well.  Housing will be a little cheaper as well.

Thanks for the tips.  I keep hearing about Saratoga Springs, it wasn't really much of a town 17 years ago when I lived there.  We will check it out this week when we are in town.  I hear the HS in Saratoga Springs is really good also.

I will say Utah county seems to have a TON of cops.

Don't drive like an asshole. They'll catch you.