Posted: 1/28/2009 8:18:28 AM EDT
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I did a metric ton of research about a year ago on where I would go if I were to leave Virginia. I would like to stay - at the very least GTFO of NoVA - but I think I'm starting to reach my threshold of tolerance for this state. It is becoming infected.
In a nutshell, here's stuff I found (all research done early/mid 2008 using 2007 figures): Income Tax Evaluations
States without Income Tax - Alaska - Florida - Nevada - South Dakota - Texas - Washington (State) - Wyoming States taxing only dividend and interest income - New Hampshire - Tennessee States with Flat Rate Income Tax - Colorado - 9.26% - Illinois - 6% - Indiana - 6.8% - Massachusetts - 10.6% - Michigan - 8.7% - Pennsylvania - 6.14% - Utah - 10% Sales Tax Evaluations
States without sales tax - Alaska - Delaware - Montana - New Hampshire - Oregon States with Sales tax < Virginia - Colorado - 2.9% - Alabama - 4% - Georgia - 4% - Hawaii - 4% - Louisiana - 4% - New York - 4% - South Dakota - 4% - Wyoming - 4% - Missouri - 4.23% (plus 1.23% on food) - North Carolina - 4.25% - Oklahoma - 4.5% - Utah - 4.65% (plus 1.75% on food) Property Tax
There's a million different ways to analyze property tax, so I decided that best way to do it was to rank according to the percentage of the average home's value. Might not be absolutely best, but for simplistic ranking it had to be decided some way. States with %/property-value property tax < Virginia - Louisiana - 0.17% - Hawaii - 0.2% - Alabama - 0.31% - Delaware - 0.4% - West Virginia - 0.46% - California - 0.48% - Mississippi - 0.5% - Nevada - 0.51% - Arkansas - 0.53% - Wyoming - 0.55% - New Mexico - 0.56% - South Carolina - 0.57% - Colorado - 0.58% - Arizona - 0.61% - Kentucky - 0.67% (- Virginia - 0.67%) Firearms Laws
Again, this is an area which could be analyzed a dozen different ways, so I boiled it down to two categories –– CCW and NFA. States which are Shall-Issue CCW and allow all forms of NFA items - Alaska - Arizona - Arkansas - Colorado - Florida - Georgia - Idaho - Kentucky - Louisiana - Maine - Mississippi - Montana - Nebraska - Nevada - New Hampshire - New Mexico - North Carolina - North Dakota - Ohio - Oklahoma - Oregon - Pennsylvania - South Carolina - South Dakota - Tennessee - Texas - Utah - Virginia - West Virginia - Wyoming For my personal assessment, I assigned "weights" to the various taxes levied by each state. I then used that to determine a list of preferred states, and eliminated any which were not Shall Issue CCW or prohibited any form of NFA items. I gave Income Tax a weight of 30%, Sales Tax a weight of 10%, and Property Tax a weight of 60%. I then multiplied these against each state's ranking in each category and averaged the results. Here's the top 10 list I got from all this: 1 - Hawaii * 2 - Delaware * 3 - Nevada 4 - Wyoming 5 - Alabama * 5 - Louisiana (same averaged score as Alabama, hence why not 6) 6 - West Virginia 7 - California * 8 - Arkansas 9 - South Carolina 10 - Tennessee (20 - Virginia) The states with a * beside them are disqualified for CCW/NFA reasons. Nevada outranked Wyoming by 0.03, but due to climate preferences, I chose Wyoming to be my "Operation: Exodos" destination. Just something I thought I'd share (again - did it long ago in the GD). If anybody would like me to run some numbers for them, I'd be happy to. Just tell me what percentage out of 100 you would assign to the categories Sales Tax, Income Tax, and Property Tax (higher % = greater influence). _MaH |
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I wish I was smart enough to do stuff like that! BUT one flaw I see is to the best of my knowledge De only allows AOW's and SBR's ETA nevermind, I see what the * means..... (shoulda stayed under my rock!) I don't see a flaw... Delaware is listed as having NFA restrictions and therefore disqualified. Here's the source I used for the NFA restrictions: http://www.mp5.net/info/sbsconr.htm _MaH ETA: Guess you got your ETA in just before I replied! Still leaving this up for the NFA source reference. I'll see if I can scrounge up the other sources I used. I know I used Packing.org for the CCW part, but that's now AWOL... |
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I was eyeballing Tennessee as I drove through it at Christmas time to visit my parents in Arkansas.... very clean for the most part, people were very friendly, some bigger cities so jobs are most likely available.
The real problem with any exodus is getting employment when you arrive at your dream locale. |
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I was eyeballing Tennessee as I drove through it at Christmas time to visit my parents in Arkansas.... very clean for the most part, people were very friendly, some bigger cities so jobs are most likely available. The real problem with any exodus is getting employment when you arrive at your dream locale. Very true, and a limiting factor if you have a particular set of skills in a very localized profession and don't want to change careers. It's easier to find/change jobs, though, than it is to change state laws. _MaH |
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I would weight income tax higher than property tax unless you're planning on purchasing a seven-figure piece of real-estate. I pay a lot more in WV income tax than I ever did in VA property tax, and my WV property taxes on two pieces of RE (primary home and retirement/BOL land) are half of what I paid on my townhouse in NoVA.
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of course if the yellowstone cauldera goes boom, there will be NO wyoming.... :) that may sway me to Nevada...
oh, and legalized prostitution...not that thats my thing...happily married man...but a state that allows hookers, machine guns, and doesn't tax you just SEEMS more laid back, doesn't it?? |
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and you can live in WV and still work in NOVA. So if you move outside of Jefferson county and work in NOVA you can almost live like a king.. Notice i said almost. Plus you can come to our meet and greets  Yeah, but 2 hours + of driving every day.... Ugh. I would rather shoot myself in the face. 
Some people can do it, but not me. Im OK giving up the acerage, sq. ft., etc for a nice easy 15 minute commute into Ballston. ($400k trade-off) |
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Have you ever considered getting out of NOVA, but remaining in VA? NOVA is a whole different world from the rest of the state. its really not....there are still parts of Fairfax and Prince William County that have 15-20 acre farms (or more....where I live in Prince William you wouldn't have any idea you were within 20 miles of Fairfax city).... I would MUCH rather live in NoVA than in the Newport News/VA Beach corridor....or in Richmond...or in Roanoke/Salem... Now....the area near Culpeper or Charlottesville? Or the Northern Valley? yeah, those are quite nice... but Danville is just....well....Danville..... |
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Reason magazine did a ranking of cities not too long ago, using a broader set of criteria. I vaguely recall Miami being the most free city on their list (they rated poorly only in the area of drug laws, which the author attributed to the influence of Uncle Sam's endless WoD and their unfortunate location in that regard...), but I can't recall any of the other highly ranked ones (I think Vegas did well except for some kind of handgun registration scheme). Their rankings aren't really that useful, because different flavors of freedom-lovers weight things differently. Depending on how much you value gun freedom, drug freedom, sexual freedom, economic freedom, etc, your personal rankings will differ. If you're just looking for all-around freedom...well good luck with that. If you live according to the laws, freedom doesn't exist in this world. Every country limits some kind of freedoms to an undesirable extent. About the only thing that might get you close is lots of money in a country with a government that can be bribed to leave you alone.
It's still TN, SC or bust for us when we get the chance to drive off into the sunset here... Quoted:
Just because NY has a 4% sales tax, doesn't mean every county has another 4% tacked onto it. Yeah, I think some places are between 8-10% total sales tax in NY. Ugh. As for VA, I intend to drive my 1999 car AS LONG AS I SHALL LIVE IN THE COMMONWEALTH, and if we ever move to a state without the car tax, buy a nice new car immediately. Not buying a new car is one of the few ways we actually get to control our own tax burden, so in a sense it's kind of cool (assuming you like jalopies, as I do and always have.)(Wikipedia tells me that "In economics, the excess burden of taxation, also known as the distortionary cost or deadweight loss of taxation, is the economic loss that society suffers as the result of a tax, over and above the revenue it collects. Distortions occur because people or firms change their behaviour in order to reduce the amount of tax they must pay." So what the hell does that mean? If GM, Ford and Chrysler are going down the crapper because they can't sell cars...I'm doing my part to screw them, and it's Virginia's fault I'm doing it! )
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I noticed a small error on your property tax for Kommiefornia (my place of birth, so I know its ins and outs...)
Look up 'Mello - Roos Tax'. In a nutshell, it's a 100% tax added on to all new and existing home sales after 1983, which means, if you buy a 200K house in the So Cal area (not gonna happen, but it's jsut a figure pulled outta thin air), then you pay 400k for it - to cover schools, roads, public safety and utilities construction to help defray state costs for that area. Might be an offset to the .47 percent you had factored in up top. Not that anyone here would want to go ( I don't...) - the general populace reviles at the thought if us and those like us - the 2A is practically non-existent there...my younger bro is torn daily over his high paying job, and the fact that he can't go out and just buy whatever the hell firearm he wants... I always wondered about North Carolina - now I know. Thanks for sharing that...when I'm close to my retirement in another 15 years, i'll be looking this kind of stuff up.... -tc |
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and you can live in WV and still work in NOVA. So if you move outside of Jefferson county and work in NOVA you can almost live like a king.. Notice i said almost. Plus you can come to our meet and greets Yeah, but 2 hours + of driving every day.... Ugh. I would rather shoot myself in the face. 
Some people can do it, but not me. Im OK giving up the acerage, sq. ft., etc for a nice easy 15 minute commute into Ballston. ($400k trade-off) I tried that experiment for a few years, moved up to WV, commuted back and forth to work, 97 miles one way, blew the engine in one of my cars (had to be the one that was paid off), maxed out my credit card buying gas every 2 days. Ended up moving BACK to Va, I still go down to WV every other weekend when I am off, but I just can't afford the commute even with the gas prices going back down. The stress of an almost 2 hour drive does not help either, and don't get me started on driving through the snow, that usually would add an hour to my commute, I can rant on but do not want to ruin Matt's thread...... 
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I tried that experiment for a few years, moved up to WV, commuted back and forth to work, 97 miles one way, blew the engine in one of my cars (had to be the one that was paid off), max out my credit card buying gas every 2 days. Ended up moving BACK to Va, I still go down to WV every other weekend when I am off, but I just can't afford the commute even with the gas prices going back down. The stress of an almost 2 hour drive does not help either, and don't get me started on driving though the snow, that usually would add an hour to my commute, I can rant on but do not want to ruin Matt's thread......
Appreciated, but I understand. This is the very same reason why I have rejected high-paying jobs located in DC, Arlington, Alexandria and even Eastern Fairfax County. The commute is not worth it –– both financially and physically. From the financial perspective, I asked myself - what sense does it make to accept a higher paying position located in an area which would require a 1-2 hour commute each day? The extra income would most likely be used to pay for the extra gasoline and maintenance my vehicle would require as a result of such a commute. I would break even if I was lucky, but more than likely I would set myself back as the higher pay would only put me in a higher tax bracket. From the physical perspective, I asked myself - what sense does it make to trade my personal time and mental well-being for a promise of higher pay? Especially since the previous paragraph outlined why I would never actually realize this higher pay. 1-2 hours of driving each way translates into 2-4 hours round trip, each day, which is cut from my personal time. Is staring at the same bumper in front of me for miles on end something I'd want to spend my personal time doing? Obviously, no. These same reasons which outline why I, living in Sterling, would refuse to take a position anywhere closer to DC than Western Fairfax County, could as easily be applied to the prospect of living in West Virginia and commuting into NoVA - or even DC - for work. [Tangent] If you're looking for a way to increase your income, there's a simple way to do it without assuming extra responsibilities/burdens, finding another job, or moving to another location. Cut your expenses. I'll use my experience as an example: Previously: - Cable TV ($100/month) - Home Phone & High Speed DSL ($100/month) - Netflix ($20/month) - AT&T Wireless Service ($120/month –– two lines) Total: $340/month Now: - "Rabbit Ears" TV - ($0/month) - 768kbps DSL on a "dry loop" - no voice service ($20/month) - Netflix –– Cancelled - Tracfone Prepaid Wireless Service (Approximately $20/month for two lines) Total: $40/month Savings: $300/month –– $3600/year That's an after-tax equivalent to about a $5k pay raise at work. [/Tangent] In other words, the answer is not always "Gotta earn more money". Many times it's actually "Gotta retain my money". Live simply. There's no FiOS out in rural Wyoming 
_MaH |
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Live without high speed internet? Perish the thought, I won't do it unless the world ends and I CAN'T get it.
On the other hand, I DID drop cable TV at a 55 dollar a month savings, and my cellular is tracfone (considering how much I call, it works much better). |
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I drive to Leesburg area so its only 30-40 min drive. And to work up here at the same job i would take a 20-30k pay cut based on average living cost in this area.
And that would have been with the same company i worked for for 10 years. So for me its worth the drive. But others i can see your issues with it. |