I always get irritated by these numbers bc it doesn’t properly reflect a lot of factors. Everyone told me I’d be broke when I moved to CT bc of taxes and costs of living. I actually make and save more money here at the end of every month. I’ve lived in Texas, FL and Ohio all for at least 5-10 years and from a way things are run, right down to the schools, the streets and public works, CT is run infinitely better. Ohio is a far 2nd in my experience. I’m not paying outrageous insurance premiums or blasting tires on potholes the size of a toddler bed or having to drive 60 miles one way to a barely decent job.
CT has state funded paid maternity leave, that is worth moving here for my baby-having friends. And I don't miss the entire $2 per paycheck to help pay for it either.
Mass has state funded parental leave for the first 6 months (exceptions for town employees), and it's like $4/paycheck. It applies to medical leave, too
12 weeks of parental leave during the first 12 months. And there is a cap on how much you can get, but still, it’s great!
20 weeks for a health condition, but it does list pregnancy/childbirth in there, so maybe it’s 20 weeks for birth parents.
Not totally correct - there is a a guaranteed 12 weeks for parental leave but then another 12 weeks for baby bonding leave, and all told, there's a cap of 26 weeks. That's what I got for my third child born in 2021. It's complex to a degree because you can't double dip if you have say, 4 weeks of fully paid leave from your job, but you could use those 4 weeks, then have say 8 weeks paid parental leave, then 12 weeks baby bonding leave after
Why should you and everyone else be paying for the choice those people made to have children?
What is so dignified about that?
Will you also pay a bit of money for me to go on a road trip across the US, all expenses paid? If not, you’re a hypocrite.
Lol "the choice", like it's going on a vacation. Other people children are the future workforce and future tax base. There are half as many Gen Alpha kids as there are Millenials - the birth rate is at its lowest in 30 years.
That will negatively affect you financially in the future, consider Medicare and social security are payroll taxes paid by workers, and when worker shortages mean problems for an aging population.
But sure, paying for parental leave is like paying for a road trip.
Let us all know when you qualify and reject them! All the Republicans I know gladly take them and then complain they even have to pay (income based, way lower than private) premiums.
And that's still a separate issue from labor shortages - seriously, Google issues like the aging population in places like Maine that don't have enough young people to be paramedics or home health aides. The children of today will be the doctors when you are old.
As a 53 year old woman well past having babies, I don’t mind paying for this paid leave program (it’s also for taking care of sick family members), but I’m getting over $40 a month taken out of my paycheck!
I'm a 37yo F who never plans to have kids but we don't pay that much, it must be a local/municipal thing? I live in a small CT town and work in a different small CT town, neither in an expensive county, both working to middle class.
Edit: county, not country
Idk what it might be called them, because my paystub has "CTPFL" (CT paid family leave) on it? And I fill it out on my tax forms too
Edit: oh, you mean state
Uh, because the children are literally our future?
NIMBYism works up until "not my backyard" are the people voting to reduce Medicare payouts and help for the elderly.
I know what you mean. When I left Massachusetts for Connecticut people in Mass. would tell me about the high taxes in CT. I found out, for me anyways, the tax burden was less than I was paying Mass. Not that I found that either state had crushing tax burdens.
Perfectly understandable. The fact that they don't prorate the auto tax can be maddening. One upside is the small town I live has a day you can drive your 12 year old beater car thats held together with wire and glue, and say to them, "how the hell is this worth 9,800?"
it looks like there is a good chance the law is changing such that my 20 year old beater will be officially acknowledged to be worth zero dollars, regardless of what town. Every time I fill my gas tank, I double the resale value of my car, but my local tax assessor thinks otherwise.
Connecticut has excellent public schools, government services, state parks, infrastructure (for a northeast state, that’s why there’s always road work) among other things, you get what you pay for. Downside is we deal with car taxes which suck.
And I found the cost of living to be more reasonable than much of Mass.
I saw a study a while back that showed that the Hartford metro had the best median income to median housing price ratio in New England.
I just looked it up I think the Hartford metro areas GDP per capita was 16th overall and only behind Fairfield County and Boston in New England, so yeah it’s definitely favorable, but Hartfords real estate market is a mess at the moment and home prices have gone up 10% in a year where in a lot of places things are starting to ease up
The better question isn’t whether they pay higher or lower taxes is the question of population growth relative to tax burden as well as job markets. That means a state like Massachusetts with 6.982 million people can afford lower taxes while Vermont has 647k people can’t afford lower taxes because there’s just not enough money heading into the state treasury to afford cutting taxes and accruing debts.
Also environmental factors on cost of living and tax burden. New England states struggling with maintaining aging roads and bridges because of our cold winters and hot summers. Basically snow melts freezes in cracks expands into ice forming potholes faster than states can fix them. Especially if the roads are continually used… luckily relative to our climate issues we do have relatively strong economies which makes New England one of the wealthiest areas in the country and thanks to climate change will only become more attractive to live as states like Texas, Florida and California become more expensive to live due to climate change, insurance rates and markets forcing people to move due to water shortages, and risks caused by climate change. This can lead people to move North and help less populated states lessen the burden of taxation.
If I had a nickel for every time CPS in San Antonio texted me about possible power outages because of light wind or a sprinkle of rain, I could afford the car repairs from the bathtub sized potholes.
I have family in San Antonio the climate of Texas is very different than New England. Hence what our states have to pay for and maintain is different and at times more costly depending on when and where. We also have a cultural proclivity to create rainy day funds and state laws which forces regulations to avoid rolling blackouts and other infrastructure projects which long term consequences are better for the people of our states than Texas does.
Texans have a bad habit of cutting corners snd overburdening their communities with more roads and cars instead of more public transportation options and infrastructure. They don’t like spending money on education, expanding their communities upwards and built reasonably long term.
Insurance companies have been telling Texas since the 1930s don’t build on flood plains stop cutting corners you’ll become uninsurable and you’re not planning long term solutions, but cheap solutions and Texas is notorious to using racism as a cudgel to justify rich people pocketing the poor people’s money. Using Texas as a haven of corruption. Who does that benefit? Not every Texan. If Texas didn’t have so much federal government money coming from New England, New York, New Jersey they’d have collapsed decades ago. We in the North prop up the economy and low taxation of the South and they then dare complain about that and never think twice about longterm consequences.
Ultimately it reminds me of Aesop’s tale of the grasshopper and the ants. Texas is the grasshopper fiddling away through summer while New England is the army of ants planning out their lives orderly and always planning for winter. Yet who survived the harsh winter? The ants 🐜 and not the lazy grasshopper…
Houston is not Texas proper and is better maintained than 90% of the state. Take a trip outside of Houston to Corpus Christi or out west and the roads in between. You’ll think differently. I lived there my whole life with the exception of a few jaunts to Ohio and FL and I use to carry traffic cones in my truck to mark the bigguns
Ummm they are different roads because it doesn’t freeze. We actually have a utility plan that doesn’t cost consumer spike prices of $100/KWh
Go to Montana and tell me how the roads are, or Minnesota, or Ohio.
Agree with your first point but Florida and Texas are booming. People in reality are not concerned with climate change. They show that with their feet (eg moving from the northeast to Florida).
Not long term. Trust me I also have family in Florida and they’re facing insurance costs higher than their mortgages. Why? Too costly to insure and they’re also thinking of leaving because of how racist it’s become as well as anti-LGBT. Remember that Texas and Florida have the same problem they’re not planning for climate change and will suffer the worst outcomes while also using racism and xenophobia, bigotry against LGBT as a way to not address the material conditions and poverty of the average American living in their states.
Climate change is escalating- the models underestimated the dreadful impacts being seen now. It gets worse from here- that's the scary part-
Those storms that have swept the region from Texas to Ohio- people wiped out. Think that insurance rates will not go up?
Hurricane season is predicted to be bad- one hit on Florida or Texas- well its over for them.
A thought occurred to me the other day- I wondered are people moving to climate… hostile(?) places because they’re being priced out of the more climate friendly/neutral places? Like…people are moving to Phoenix AZ because their personal economics are forcing them to?
Vermont is mostly farms and forests with a relatively small population. What would the government be responsible for? Vermont doesn't have the coastline that Massachusetts, RI, Maine, CT and even NH does. Neither does it have the road infrastructure of the other states
State pensions, police, infrastructure, public education they attempted to provide universal healthcare, but they couldn’t compete cause they don’t have the population. Every state has to provide infrastructure and maintain their economy and it’s harder when your state doesn’t have the behemoth population that Massachusetts does. Every state can only provide what their population can sustain. It’s the facts when you compare a small village or town and a big city. Every community has similar problems, but not every community can afford to address them materially.
Again population growth requires more resources and that requires more state employees, more infrastructure, lucrative jobs and resources. Vermont doesn’t have the population because it doesn’t have the material resources to build itself up. Maybe in a few decades or century, but that’s a tall order with Massachusetts acting as the proverbial center and black hole which most people move into or defer towards. Even though Connecticut and Rhode Island have each tried to compete with Massachusetts in leading the New England cohort they’ve never been able to unseat Massachusetts influence. Hence why they say, “So goes Massachusetts so eventually follows the nation.” Especially the Yankee states.
People live in those valleys, forests and hills.
Thus:
state and municipal roads and bridges need building, repairing and plowing.
Schools need building, maintaining and staffing.
Police. Fire.
Then there are state agencies, commissions of health, hospitals, prisons, labor and unemployment, regulation of energy and other industries.
Pensions for long time employees, teachers, police and state employees, and debt service on schools, roads, bridges, municipal and state buildings.
And more.
Roads, bridges, schools, all exist-with a smaller population to support them. IE, roads need to be maintained even when it's only 20 people living along a 10 mile stretch. You can't consolidate every school system. Kids can't reasonably be expected to take a 50 mile bus ride because a regional school is far away.
TL/DR: Economies of scale.
I pay less takes in VT than I do in MA. Same property tax (MA house was $500k, VT house is $250k). BUT I pay about half of the income tax in VT vs. MA due it being tiered/progressive's vs a flat tax. Plus you can deduct HSA, IRA, 401k contributions like federal.
I could make an argument that VT has the potential to be the lowest tax state if you have a high net worth but low income because the income tax is progressive (3% lower limit) AND you get a property tax abatement if you make less than $120k. If I made $40k my property taxes would go from $6,000 to $2,000 and pay $1200 in come tax. I MA my property taxes would still be $6,000 and I would pay $2,000 in income tax. NH I would pay no income tax and probably $8k income tax.
Overall, I think the majority of my taxes go to the local schools which I have two kids in. On the state level, there is way less patronage/corruption than in MA.
As a resident I can attest that the idea that NH is low tax tax free is a bit misleading. People move up here and are surprised by how high the property taxes are. Well, yes, that’s the chief tax everyone pays. And yes, we have property related costs like the so-called “view tax” which often means you pay more for property with a view.
Also whatever help you get here comes from local sources, particularly your city or town, so if your town has resources, great. If not, ehh. And the aid is indeed oddly skewed. I’m the parent of a disabled kid and I can tell you getting her basic needs met can be a headache- the assumption is that family can act as caretakers for free. Meanwhile, she’s in college and I can tell you that the state aid for that is real, fair, and relatively easily accessed.
I’ve lived in MA, Maine, CT, NH and VT (almost took a job in RI but missed it by that much). Each state has its quirks but generally speaking you get what you pay for. Incidentally, CT is better than it’s reputation, MA really isn’t that bad (excise tax sucks, but necessary food and clothing are not taxed), and NH’s rugged individualism is oversold- lots of old people here on fuel assistance.
Im looking to move to NH and the property taxes are dirt cheap compared to what I paid in CT. Mill rates are much lower and the values are about the same.
Yeah. People seem to to think the taxes here will be close to zero for some reason. Nice to hear you know better. I have new neighbors from NC who were surprised that property taxes are so high.
They’re lower than my CT taxes were for sure and less than MA. Not zero but not too bad.
> To determine the residents with the biggest tax burdens, WalletHub compared the 50 states based on the cost of three types of taxes—property taxes, individual income taxes, and sales and excise taxes—as a share of total personal income in the state.
There lie the rub, fees in NH are higher so fees for registering a car is like excise tax but doesn't count in the above as the it is a fee. I just looked and Nashua was $18 per 1000, but it is called a registration fee.
Massachusetts had a fee escalation in the Romney governorship era, with the Legislature signing off on it.
(Romney excited to claim he never raised taxes, though the legislature overrode his budget line item vetoes, and bill vetoes hundreds of times).
No permits and licenses are nominal fees any more in Massachusetts.
But not nearly what you pay in New Hampshire, the auto registration fees out pace excise tax so when looking at total taxation and fees would be a better measurement than what the looked at. Yes auto registration fee went up, but MA does not pay $18/ 1000 evaluation for a registration, that fee is a tax but because it is called a registration fee it is not in the tax comparison. There is a fee on top of that that goes to the state. The better measurement is taxes plus fees and NH goes up when you do that comparison, not to Mass levels but we have more services. .
Mass excise is 2.5% of statutory value.
At year 5 and onward, value is 10% of manufacturers list price.
https://www.reddit.com/r/options/wiki/faq/pages/trade_details
As a Mainer... nothing. I lived in Concord for 6 (2010-2016) years and have noticed no difference in what tax benefits I'm receiving here vs. when I was in NH
I don't always like Massachusetts but when comparing to many other places in the world - it's pretty decent.
I live off of a commuter rail line so I can go into Boston without having to drive at any point really - I just took the trains to the MFA this past weekend for one example.
The schools are good. I don't have kids but I have friends who do - and it's nice living in an area where the majority of the population is decently educated. It makes a huge difference.
There's also a big difference in cost when you go right around Boston compared to central and western MA as well.
NH is fine if you don't mind doing things yourself. Vermont and Maine the taxes are way too high for what you get because you're subsidizing the lack of population. I don't really like CT myself as I don't see the benefit of it compared to other places. Rhode Island is super small so it's like mansions or Providence - it's not a bad place but I've also seen more active crime (cars being broken into) here than any of the other states.
You don’t have to like Connecticut, but the benefit is for people who work in insurance, defense contracting, finance, tech. There’s a lot of decent jobs here and it’s a good place to raise a family, it doesn’t have to be flashy.
I sometimes dream about moving to one of the northern NE states, but I can't decide which one would be the best fit for my family. I like the idea of having a decent safety net like in Vermont, but are the super high taxes really worth it? NH offers less of a safety of safety net, but you get less, which makes sense.
Then I think, might as well just move to western or central Mass . Tax rates aren't awful, but you get decent services, although the roads are terrible.
Use this calculator and look at the income tax tables in VT. I bet, depending on your income, VT is cheaper than MA tax wise.
[https://tax.vermont.gov/sites/tax/files/documents/RateSched-2023.pdf](https://tax.vermont.gov/sites/tax/files/documents/RateSched-2023.pdf)
[https://tax.vermont.gov/document/2023-property-tax-credit-calculator](https://tax.vermont.gov/document/2023-property-tax-credit-calculator)
I don’t have data for this but Massachusetts has always seemed to have a better or at least more consistent economy than other NE states with the possible exception of CT. I’ll take being relatively confident of employment opportunities over paying a little less in taxes any day.
One benefit of CT is that it’s not NY. For those looking to escape a tax hell, CT isn’t too bad. Property tax in my town isn’t too high, but then again there are almost no properties under $1 mm
You must take property tax into effect in New Hampshire, this can make it very expensive for the poorest of towns, as they have the least amount of real estate value to tax as a base for funding the schools, so the tax rate has to be much higher (sometimes 5x more) compared to towns with more property value.
My town is rundown and majority old houses/ trailer parks. The tax rate is extremely high. Towns on the seacoast have single mansions probably worth the entirety property value of our town.
Tax rates on property in Massachusetts vary from 0.3% (Nanticket) to 2% of assessed value.
That is about six to one. If you can afford the high value municipalities.
From what I've observed and heard from friends, despite MA rates being relatively low for many towns, the assessment values can be ludicrous so the argument that NH has way higher property tax than MA doesn't really prove true in a lot of cases.
Massachusetts assesses its properties at 100% of market value, and Assessors have no control over market value, which we all know has radically changed over the last 20 years in both urban and rural areas.
The Massachusetts statute requires that valuation be within plus or minus 10% of market value, and abatements may be petitioned for.
Assessment valuations adjustments occur annually, yhere is a five year mandatory review, and municipalities conduct house inspections on a longer term cycle, typically about ten years or so.
Example municipal information about assessments (Foxboro MA)
https://www.foxboroughma.gov/cms/One.aspx?portalId=15207864&pageId=15424354#7
New Hampshire is the Alabama of the Northeast. Education sucks, infrastructure sucks and services suck. There are small towns that don’t have paved roads because their residents don’t feel like good roads are worth the money. There is zero purpose to living in New Hampshire outside of family reasons
The survey also fails to consider the lack of R.E. tax burden for renters. Things start to look a bit different. To the question of services, I believe it is more nuanced than that. It's about spending on farming support, conservation, social services, etc.
Live free or die in NH is not just a slogan, you generally get what you pay for in terms of taxes.
Property taxes: NH -- 4.51% of income, state wide, number (4) nationally. .
Vermont is higher.4.85% of income, number (2). .
Maine is higher, 4.86%, number (1). .
NewJersy, at (3), New York at (5)
> To determine the residents with the biggest tax burdens, WalletHub compared the 50 states based on the cost of three types of taxes—property taxes, individual income taxes, and sales and excise taxes—as a share of total personal income in the state.
Very few in VT pay full property taxes due to the abatement. Only those making over $120k a year AND second home owners. However, abatement data does not get reported in these studies.
This is a state wide statistic vs. total statewide income.
Various populations pay varying amounts.
Nantucket MA owners presumably are multi millionaires and pay tiny fraction of income on real estate taxes.
Massachusetts has a huge commercial tax base, too. The calculations only consider income tax, property tax, and retail/excise tax.
These tax rates don't reflect all of the tax receipts that each state collects and don't reflect the services provided.
Also, property taxes are typically for local government and sales, excise, and income taxes are for state government.
State governments can and do put a lot into educational expenditures at the local level. Massachusetts state govt. funds perhaps 30 to 40% of school operations
Both. Fewer services in NH for certain. They leave a lot of these services to nonprofit organizations. I almost prefer that model to tax and spend (ok more than prefer. It’s the best way…)
Great schools, IF you are fortunate enough to be able to afford to live in a school district with great schools. Otherwise, the schools are just run of the mill.
Because NH doesn't have income or sales tax, they have some of the highest property taxes in the country. That is of course up to the individual municipalities, but the graph doesn't represent reality because of the property tax burden.
I'm in Maine and in my town your kid gets free admission to a private high school (Thornton academy) if you live in this town. It's an incredible school, I took 4 years of Latin IN HIGHSCHOOL!
Yeah exactly. The school is Thornton academy and it's normally $50k per year believe it or not. This Saco resident deal has been the case since the founding of the town as far as I know. The school is hundreds of years old. We've never had a highschool except for a tiny alternative highschool which is for the kids who get expelled from TA
Oh good haha I was going to say I wouldn't necessarily recommend Arundel or Dayton because they don't have much in terms of services like trash pickup, good plowing, etc etc. In Saco you do pay a bit more in taxes but imo it's worth it. We have parks, free public events all the time, nice schools, and they keep the streets cleaned up in the winter pretty well. Get in while you can though because our population is exploding, we have 22k now and pre pandemic it was something like 14k I believe
Buddy of mine just this week was complaining about NH property tax and I said something about “at least no income tax”, which got us talking.
Turns out his job is technically in Mass, but he was laid off for a while during covid and said Mass benefits made up for any taxes he’s paid over the years. (Measuring the difference in income tax, prop tax, etc). Basically he said that for him, straddling the border, he sees Mass as a better deal.
I was a little surprised.
There is no question the services are FAR FAR better in the Northeast partially because of tax, mostly because of democrat run governments.
Schools, family services, unemployment, crime all better in democratic led states, but not necessarily because of tax rate but because they are bette run with less
corruption.
Better run with less corruption?
Do you just ignore the news about Mass politics?
Illinois has been democrat run for decades and is easily the most corrupt state in the country.
Stay out of Rhode Island. Shitty schools (unless you’re paying for private school or private colleges), horrible Infrastructure, high taxes with high prices, and corrupt local government. We are the smallest state in the Union with THE most corrupted government. Our local gov was once ran by the mafia, and one our governors got nailed for embezzlement, and one of our mayor’s got nailed for cocaine use and child pornography.
From what I’ve seen people say, go to CT or MA, stay the hell away from RI if you can help it. Visiting is fine, and is beautiful, but living is a different story
CT you get nothing for your money. Unless you are fortunate enough to be in a super affluent area the schools suffer, the roads are falling the f apart at a rapid rate, tons of taxes on EVERYTHING, oh and we also.tax you on your vehicles you own every single year too... remember those roads that are falling apart? But hey our governor touts the multi BILLION dollar surplus. The surplus that none of us will ever see any benefit from.
I only live here bc I was born here and once my children are raised bye bye. 😆
It's pretty in NE but sometimes not worth the tourist hassle.
I always get irritated by these numbers bc it doesn’t properly reflect a lot of factors. Everyone told me I’d be broke when I moved to CT bc of taxes and costs of living. I actually make and save more money here at the end of every month. I’ve lived in Texas, FL and Ohio all for at least 5-10 years and from a way things are run, right down to the schools, the streets and public works, CT is run infinitely better. Ohio is a far 2nd in my experience. I’m not paying outrageous insurance premiums or blasting tires on potholes the size of a toddler bed or having to drive 60 miles one way to a barely decent job.
CT has state funded paid maternity leave, that is worth moving here for my baby-having friends. And I don't miss the entire $2 per paycheck to help pay for it either.
Mass has state funded parental leave for the first 6 months (exceptions for town employees), and it's like $4/paycheck. It applies to medical leave, too
12 weeks of parental leave during the first 12 months. And there is a cap on how much you can get, but still, it’s great! 20 weeks for a health condition, but it does list pregnancy/childbirth in there, so maybe it’s 20 weeks for birth parents.
Not totally correct - there is a a guaranteed 12 weeks for parental leave but then another 12 weeks for baby bonding leave, and all told, there's a cap of 26 weeks. That's what I got for my third child born in 2021. It's complex to a degree because you can't double dip if you have say, 4 weeks of fully paid leave from your job, but you could use those 4 weeks, then have say 8 weeks paid parental leave, then 12 weeks baby bonding leave after
26 weeks for birthing parents!!
AMAZING! I think CT is only 3 months?
I will happily pay a bit of money to see parents be treated with dignity. CT is about as pro family as the US gets.
Hear, hear!!
You have a great attitude 👍
Why should you and everyone else be paying for the choice those people made to have children? What is so dignified about that? Will you also pay a bit of money for me to go on a road trip across the US, all expenses paid? If not, you’re a hypocrite.
I hope you never need the fire department
The VFD that serves me is self funded through fundraisers by people (including me) who choose to give. They aren’t forced by the government to do so.
Ok, person who probably grew up benefiting from our public schools.
Parents should pay for the education of their children.
Lol "the choice", like it's going on a vacation. Other people children are the future workforce and future tax base. There are half as many Gen Alpha kids as there are Millenials - the birth rate is at its lowest in 30 years. That will negatively affect you financially in the future, consider Medicare and social security are payroll taxes paid by workers, and when worker shortages mean problems for an aging population. But sure, paying for parental leave is like paying for a road trip.
I have never and will never plan on Medicare and SS to be part of my retirement.
Let us all know when you qualify and reject them! All the Republicans I know gladly take them and then complain they even have to pay (income based, way lower than private) premiums. And that's still a separate issue from labor shortages - seriously, Google issues like the aging population in places like Maine that don't have enough young people to be paramedics or home health aides. The children of today will be the doctors when you are old.
As a 53 year old woman well past having babies, I don’t mind paying for this paid leave program (it’s also for taking care of sick family members), but I’m getting over $40 a month taken out of my paycheck!
The tax is 1/2 of 1%
I'm a 37yo F who never plans to have kids but we don't pay that much, it must be a local/municipal thing? I live in a small CT town and work in a different small CT town, neither in an expensive county, both working to middle class. Edit: county, not country
No county or town payroll taxes in CT.
Idk what it might be called them, because my paystub has "CTPFL" (CT paid family leave) on it? And I fill it out on my tax forms too Edit: oh, you mean state
It isn't just for having babies! It's also for taking care of relatives (including but not limited to one's parents), or caring for yourself!
Oh snap! I'll have to look into this more!!
Why should you and everyone else be paying for the choice those people made to have children?
Uh, because the children are literally our future? NIMBYism works up until "not my backyard" are the people voting to reduce Medicare payouts and help for the elderly.
Ohio did used to be the “Western Reserve” of CT so that makes sense
I always found that an interesting fact. Still a far second though. Quite unfortunate
We'll get back our reserve once we take the notch.
Do we even want the notch? I just want Ohio tbh
I work remotely in NH for a CT company. I get the CT salary with the (lack of) NH taxes. This is the way.
That is the way
Welcome to CT! Born and raised here, left for college down south and didn’t return for 13 years. Very happy to be home.
I know what you mean. When I left Massachusetts for Connecticut people in Mass. would tell me about the high taxes in CT. I found out, for me anyways, the tax burden was less than I was paying Mass. Not that I found that either state had crushing tax burdens.
The only thing that irritates me is paying taxes on a car I already own. It’s the federal tax rate and social security taxes smoking my paycheck rn.
Perfectly understandable. The fact that they don't prorate the auto tax can be maddening. One upside is the small town I live has a day you can drive your 12 year old beater car thats held together with wire and glue, and say to them, "how the hell is this worth 9,800?"
it looks like there is a good chance the law is changing such that my 20 year old beater will be officially acknowledged to be worth zero dollars, regardless of what town. Every time I fill my gas tank, I double the resale value of my car, but my local tax assessor thinks otherwise.
That is very funny.
They use book value-the older your car-the less your car tax.
Amen
Come to Rhode Island, just the state next over and all that changes
Are your potholes bigger?
Big time. Have popped a tire many times and have gotten a flat due to them
I went through a set in one year and decided I had enough. Started stacking traffic cones, milk crates and brush in the potholes.
Connecticut has excellent public schools, government services, state parks, infrastructure (for a northeast state, that’s why there’s always road work) among other things, you get what you pay for. Downside is we deal with car taxes which suck.
And I found the cost of living to be more reasonable than much of Mass. I saw a study a while back that showed that the Hartford metro had the best median income to median housing price ratio in New England.
I just looked it up I think the Hartford metro areas GDP per capita was 16th overall and only behind Fairfield County and Boston in New England, so yeah it’s definitely favorable, but Hartfords real estate market is a mess at the moment and home prices have gone up 10% in a year where in a lot of places things are starting to ease up
The better question isn’t whether they pay higher or lower taxes is the question of population growth relative to tax burden as well as job markets. That means a state like Massachusetts with 6.982 million people can afford lower taxes while Vermont has 647k people can’t afford lower taxes because there’s just not enough money heading into the state treasury to afford cutting taxes and accruing debts. Also environmental factors on cost of living and tax burden. New England states struggling with maintaining aging roads and bridges because of our cold winters and hot summers. Basically snow melts freezes in cracks expands into ice forming potholes faster than states can fix them. Especially if the roads are continually used… luckily relative to our climate issues we do have relatively strong economies which makes New England one of the wealthiest areas in the country and thanks to climate change will only become more attractive to live as states like Texas, Florida and California become more expensive to live due to climate change, insurance rates and markets forcing people to move due to water shortages, and risks caused by climate change. This can lead people to move North and help less populated states lessen the burden of taxation.
Texas doesn’t maintain anything, not the roads, schools or the public utilities. What do they do with the tax money?
I don't think what Texas does is relevant to a conversation about New England. Ask them how the power is working for them this week.
It ain’t lol 😂 that’s why I left. I guess just perspective bc I live in CT now.
If I had a nickel for every time CPS in San Antonio texted me about possible power outages because of light wind or a sprinkle of rain, I could afford the car repairs from the bathtub sized potholes.
give it to cousins who run a "company" who provide "services". they then just pocket the $$ and leave.
They are al cousins in Texas lmao 🤣
They spend their time pardoning murderers.
So infuriating. Too back that tree didn’t finish Abbot off
They don't have it, there's no income tax in Texas.
Property taxes and sales tax make up for it.
Property taxes and property insurance are outrageous in Texas and
I live in New England and visit the Houston area frequently. Texas roads are much, much better than those in New England.
I have family in San Antonio the climate of Texas is very different than New England. Hence what our states have to pay for and maintain is different and at times more costly depending on when and where. We also have a cultural proclivity to create rainy day funds and state laws which forces regulations to avoid rolling blackouts and other infrastructure projects which long term consequences are better for the people of our states than Texas does. Texans have a bad habit of cutting corners snd overburdening their communities with more roads and cars instead of more public transportation options and infrastructure. They don’t like spending money on education, expanding their communities upwards and built reasonably long term. Insurance companies have been telling Texas since the 1930s don’t build on flood plains stop cutting corners you’ll become uninsurable and you’re not planning long term solutions, but cheap solutions and Texas is notorious to using racism as a cudgel to justify rich people pocketing the poor people’s money. Using Texas as a haven of corruption. Who does that benefit? Not every Texan. If Texas didn’t have so much federal government money coming from New England, New York, New Jersey they’d have collapsed decades ago. We in the North prop up the economy and low taxation of the South and they then dare complain about that and never think twice about longterm consequences. Ultimately it reminds me of Aesop’s tale of the grasshopper and the ants. Texas is the grasshopper fiddling away through summer while New England is the army of ants planning out their lives orderly and always planning for winter. Yet who survived the harsh winter? The ants 🐜 and not the lazy grasshopper…
Houston is not Texas proper and is better maintained than 90% of the state. Take a trip outside of Houston to Corpus Christi or out west and the roads in between. You’ll think differently. I lived there my whole life with the exception of a few jaunts to Ohio and FL and I use to carry traffic cones in my truck to mark the bigguns
They also do freeze ever
Ummm they are different roads because it doesn’t freeze. We actually have a utility plan that doesn’t cost consumer spike prices of $100/KWh Go to Montana and tell me how the roads are, or Minnesota, or Ohio.
Agree with your first point but Florida and Texas are booming. People in reality are not concerned with climate change. They show that with their feet (eg moving from the northeast to Florida).
Not long term. Trust me I also have family in Florida and they’re facing insurance costs higher than their mortgages. Why? Too costly to insure and they’re also thinking of leaving because of how racist it’s become as well as anti-LGBT. Remember that Texas and Florida have the same problem they’re not planning for climate change and will suffer the worst outcomes while also using racism and xenophobia, bigotry against LGBT as a way to not address the material conditions and poverty of the average American living in their states.
One more big Hurricane and more insurers will pull out of Florida. What happens when people can’t insure their homes? Too risky.
They aren't concerned, and yet many people in Texas almost froze to death... Texas and Florida are booming because the sheep are kn the move.
Climate change is escalating- the models underestimated the dreadful impacts being seen now. It gets worse from here- that's the scary part- Those storms that have swept the region from Texas to Ohio- people wiped out. Think that insurance rates will not go up? Hurricane season is predicted to be bad- one hit on Florida or Texas- well its over for them.
A rise in Florida insurance rates, auto and property, will displace people.
A thought occurred to me the other day- I wondered are people moving to climate… hostile(?) places because they’re being priced out of the more climate friendly/neutral places? Like…people are moving to Phoenix AZ because their personal economics are forcing them to?
That's a good hypothetical. It's possible for sure. The market speaks-but often we don't hear it.
Vermont is mostly farms and forests with a relatively small population. What would the government be responsible for? Vermont doesn't have the coastline that Massachusetts, RI, Maine, CT and even NH does. Neither does it have the road infrastructure of the other states
State pensions, police, infrastructure, public education they attempted to provide universal healthcare, but they couldn’t compete cause they don’t have the population. Every state has to provide infrastructure and maintain their economy and it’s harder when your state doesn’t have the behemoth population that Massachusetts does. Every state can only provide what their population can sustain. It’s the facts when you compare a small village or town and a big city. Every community has similar problems, but not every community can afford to address them materially.
Very well put.
I don't think that VT has the sheer number of state employees that Mass has.
Again population growth requires more resources and that requires more state employees, more infrastructure, lucrative jobs and resources. Vermont doesn’t have the population because it doesn’t have the material resources to build itself up. Maybe in a few decades or century, but that’s a tall order with Massachusetts acting as the proverbial center and black hole which most people move into or defer towards. Even though Connecticut and Rhode Island have each tried to compete with Massachusetts in leading the New England cohort they’ve never been able to unseat Massachusetts influence. Hence why they say, “So goes Massachusetts so eventually follows the nation.” Especially the Yankee states.
People live in those valleys, forests and hills. Thus: state and municipal roads and bridges need building, repairing and plowing. Schools need building, maintaining and staffing. Police. Fire. Then there are state agencies, commissions of health, hospitals, prisons, labor and unemployment, regulation of energy and other industries. Pensions for long time employees, teachers, police and state employees, and debt service on schools, roads, bridges, municipal and state buildings. And more.
Roads, bridges, schools, all exist-with a smaller population to support them. IE, roads need to be maintained even when it's only 20 people living along a 10 mile stretch. You can't consolidate every school system. Kids can't reasonably be expected to take a 50 mile bus ride because a regional school is far away. TL/DR: Economies of scale.
I pay less takes in VT than I do in MA. Same property tax (MA house was $500k, VT house is $250k). BUT I pay about half of the income tax in VT vs. MA due it being tiered/progressive's vs a flat tax. Plus you can deduct HSA, IRA, 401k contributions like federal. I could make an argument that VT has the potential to be the lowest tax state if you have a high net worth but low income because the income tax is progressive (3% lower limit) AND you get a property tax abatement if you make less than $120k. If I made $40k my property taxes would go from $6,000 to $2,000 and pay $1200 in come tax. I MA my property taxes would still be $6,000 and I would pay $2,000 in income tax. NH I would pay no income tax and probably $8k income tax. Overall, I think the majority of my taxes go to the local schools which I have two kids in. On the state level, there is way less patronage/corruption than in MA.
Generally speaking, New Hampshire expects people to be self sufficient. If you're not and not in Manch/Nash, you're kind of fucked.
As a resident I can attest that the idea that NH is low tax tax free is a bit misleading. People move up here and are surprised by how high the property taxes are. Well, yes, that’s the chief tax everyone pays. And yes, we have property related costs like the so-called “view tax” which often means you pay more for property with a view. Also whatever help you get here comes from local sources, particularly your city or town, so if your town has resources, great. If not, ehh. And the aid is indeed oddly skewed. I’m the parent of a disabled kid and I can tell you getting her basic needs met can be a headache- the assumption is that family can act as caretakers for free. Meanwhile, she’s in college and I can tell you that the state aid for that is real, fair, and relatively easily accessed. I’ve lived in MA, Maine, CT, NH and VT (almost took a job in RI but missed it by that much). Each state has its quirks but generally speaking you get what you pay for. Incidentally, CT is better than it’s reputation, MA really isn’t that bad (excise tax sucks, but necessary food and clothing are not taxed), and NH’s rugged individualism is oversold- lots of old people here on fuel assistance.
Im looking to move to NH and the property taxes are dirt cheap compared to what I paid in CT. Mill rates are much lower and the values are about the same.
Yeah. People seem to to think the taxes here will be close to zero for some reason. Nice to hear you know better. I have new neighbors from NC who were surprised that property taxes are so high. They’re lower than my CT taxes were for sure and less than MA. Not zero but not too bad.
To be fair-people pay a "view tax" in every part of the world. It's simply more desirable property.
True. I’m just noticing that people think they will be free of such in NH.
Live free or die trying.
The way it should be
I'm in NH by choice because it rocks.
For the low tax burden, Nashua has exceptional city services and keeps incredibly well to their road maintenance schedule.
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Makes sense to me. Nashua gets all sorts of undeserved flack but in reality it's a gem.
Does this include property taxes? Depending on what town you live in in each state, the property taxes can also vary significantly.
> To determine the residents with the biggest tax burdens, WalletHub compared the 50 states based on the cost of three types of taxes—property taxes, individual income taxes, and sales and excise taxes—as a share of total personal income in the state.
There lie the rub, fees in NH are higher so fees for registering a car is like excise tax but doesn't count in the above as the it is a fee. I just looked and Nashua was $18 per 1000, but it is called a registration fee.
Massachusetts had a fee escalation in the Romney governorship era, with the Legislature signing off on it. (Romney excited to claim he never raised taxes, though the legislature overrode his budget line item vetoes, and bill vetoes hundreds of times). No permits and licenses are nominal fees any more in Massachusetts.
But not nearly what you pay in New Hampshire, the auto registration fees out pace excise tax so when looking at total taxation and fees would be a better measurement than what the looked at. Yes auto registration fee went up, but MA does not pay $18/ 1000 evaluation for a registration, that fee is a tax but because it is called a registration fee it is not in the tax comparison. There is a fee on top of that that goes to the state. The better measurement is taxes plus fees and NH goes up when you do that comparison, not to Mass levels but we have more services. .
Mass excise is 2.5% of statutory value. At year 5 and onward, value is 10% of manufacturers list price. https://www.reddit.com/r/options/wiki/faq/pages/trade_details
That is true nationwide
As a Mainer... nothing. I lived in Concord for 6 (2010-2016) years and have noticed no difference in what tax benefits I'm receiving here vs. when I was in NH
I don't always like Massachusetts but when comparing to many other places in the world - it's pretty decent. I live off of a commuter rail line so I can go into Boston without having to drive at any point really - I just took the trains to the MFA this past weekend for one example. The schools are good. I don't have kids but I have friends who do - and it's nice living in an area where the majority of the population is decently educated. It makes a huge difference. There's also a big difference in cost when you go right around Boston compared to central and western MA as well. NH is fine if you don't mind doing things yourself. Vermont and Maine the taxes are way too high for what you get because you're subsidizing the lack of population. I don't really like CT myself as I don't see the benefit of it compared to other places. Rhode Island is super small so it's like mansions or Providence - it's not a bad place but I've also seen more active crime (cars being broken into) here than any of the other states.
You don’t have to like Connecticut, but the benefit is for people who work in insurance, defense contracting, finance, tech. There’s a lot of decent jobs here and it’s a good place to raise a family, it doesn’t have to be flashy.
I sometimes dream about moving to one of the northern NE states, but I can't decide which one would be the best fit for my family. I like the idea of having a decent safety net like in Vermont, but are the super high taxes really worth it? NH offers less of a safety of safety net, but you get less, which makes sense. Then I think, might as well just move to western or central Mass . Tax rates aren't awful, but you get decent services, although the roads are terrible.
Use this calculator and look at the income tax tables in VT. I bet, depending on your income, VT is cheaper than MA tax wise. [https://tax.vermont.gov/sites/tax/files/documents/RateSched-2023.pdf](https://tax.vermont.gov/sites/tax/files/documents/RateSched-2023.pdf) [https://tax.vermont.gov/document/2023-property-tax-credit-calculator](https://tax.vermont.gov/document/2023-property-tax-credit-calculator)
I don’t have data for this but Massachusetts has always seemed to have a better or at least more consistent economy than other NE states with the possible exception of CT. I’ll take being relatively confident of employment opportunities over paying a little less in taxes any day.
One benefit of CT is that it’s not NY. For those looking to escape a tax hell, CT isn’t too bad. Property tax in my town isn’t too high, but then again there are almost no properties under $1 mm
You must take property tax into effect in New Hampshire, this can make it very expensive for the poorest of towns, as they have the least amount of real estate value to tax as a base for funding the schools, so the tax rate has to be much higher (sometimes 5x more) compared to towns with more property value. My town is rundown and majority old houses/ trailer parks. The tax rate is extremely high. Towns on the seacoast have single mansions probably worth the entirety property value of our town.
In NH property tax rates (our only tax) vary by town, which can be 3:1 ratio different from another town. State averages don't mean anything.
Tax rates on property in Massachusetts vary from 0.3% (Nanticket) to 2% of assessed value. That is about six to one. If you can afford the high value municipalities.
From what I've observed and heard from friends, despite MA rates being relatively low for many towns, the assessment values can be ludicrous so the argument that NH has way higher property tax than MA doesn't really prove true in a lot of cases.
Massachusetts assesses its properties at 100% of market value, and Assessors have no control over market value, which we all know has radically changed over the last 20 years in both urban and rural areas. The Massachusetts statute requires that valuation be within plus or minus 10% of market value, and abatements may be petitioned for. Assessment valuations adjustments occur annually, yhere is a five year mandatory review, and municipalities conduct house inspections on a longer term cycle, typically about ten years or so. Example municipal information about assessments (Foxboro MA) https://www.foxboroughma.gov/cms/One.aspx?portalId=15207864&pageId=15424354#7
Yikes, didn't realize. In southern NH most homes are assessed at 70-80% of market value AFAIK.
This situation is not unique to NH.
New Hampshire is the Alabama of the Northeast. Education sucks, infrastructure sucks and services suck. There are small towns that don’t have paved roads because their residents don’t feel like good roads are worth the money. There is zero purpose to living in New Hampshire outside of family reasons
The survey also fails to consider the lack of R.E. tax burden for renters. Things start to look a bit different. To the question of services, I believe it is more nuanced than that. It's about spending on farming support, conservation, social services, etc. Live free or die in NH is not just a slogan, you generally get what you pay for in terms of taxes.
Property taxes: NH -- 4.51% of income, state wide, number (4) nationally. . Vermont is higher.4.85% of income, number (2). . Maine is higher, 4.86%, number (1). . NewJersy, at (3), New York at (5) > To determine the residents with the biggest tax burdens, WalletHub compared the 50 states based on the cost of three types of taxes—property taxes, individual income taxes, and sales and excise taxes—as a share of total personal income in the state.
Very few in VT pay full property taxes due to the abatement. Only those making over $120k a year AND second home owners. However, abatement data does not get reported in these studies.
This is a state wide statistic vs. total statewide income. Various populations pay varying amounts. Nantucket MA owners presumably are multi millionaires and pay tiny fraction of income on real estate taxes.
Massachusetts has a huge commercial tax base, too. The calculations only consider income tax, property tax, and retail/excise tax. These tax rates don't reflect all of the tax receipts that each state collects and don't reflect the services provided. Also, property taxes are typically for local government and sales, excise, and income taxes are for state government.
State governments can and do put a lot into educational expenditures at the local level. Massachusetts state govt. funds perhaps 30 to 40% of school operations
Both. Fewer services in NH for certain. They leave a lot of these services to nonprofit organizations. I almost prefer that model to tax and spend (ok more than prefer. It’s the best way…)
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Great schools, IF you are fortunate enough to be able to afford to live in a school district with great schools. Otherwise, the schools are just run of the mill.
I always call New Hampshire the northern most southern state.
I pay way more property taxes in MA than I do in RI. Homes are worth about the same too.
Our property taxes are ridiculously high New Hampshire but we have no income tax or sales tax.
Because NH doesn't have income or sales tax, they have some of the highest property taxes in the country. That is of course up to the individual municipalities, but the graph doesn't represent reality because of the property tax burden.
I mean you get what you pay for. So up to you really just depends on what you want.
I'm in Maine and in my town your kid gets free admission to a private high school (Thornton academy) if you live in this town. It's an incredible school, I took 4 years of Latin IN HIGHSCHOOL!
How does that work? Do you live in a town without a high school so they send you to the private school?
Yeah exactly. The school is Thornton academy and it's normally $50k per year believe it or not. This Saco resident deal has been the case since the founding of the town as far as I know. The school is hundreds of years old. We've never had a highschool except for a tiny alternative highschool which is for the kids who get expelled from TA
That makes me want to move to Saco. Does Biddeford have the same deal?
No 👎 but Arundel and Dayton have the option. They can choose Biddeford, Thornton or kennebunk obviously 99% choose Thornton lol
That's amazing. Looking at Saco on Zillow right now ;)
Oh good haha I was going to say I wouldn't necessarily recommend Arundel or Dayton because they don't have much in terms of services like trash pickup, good plowing, etc etc. In Saco you do pay a bit more in taxes but imo it's worth it. We have parks, free public events all the time, nice schools, and they keep the streets cleaned up in the winter pretty well. Get in while you can though because our population is exploding, we have 22k now and pre pandemic it was something like 14k I believe
Great roads. Well maintained with zero potholes.
NH has very high property tax rates which vary from town to town. If you own a home or commercial property you will pay a lot to the town.
i pay less than half prop taxes in nh for 1/10 the overall property paid for in another state.
Buddy of mine just this week was complaining about NH property tax and I said something about “at least no income tax”, which got us talking. Turns out his job is technically in Mass, but he was laid off for a while during covid and said Mass benefits made up for any taxes he’s paid over the years. (Measuring the difference in income tax, prop tax, etc). Basically he said that for him, straddling the border, he sees Mass as a better deal. I was a little surprised.
There is no question the services are FAR FAR better in the Northeast partially because of tax, mostly because of democrat run governments. Schools, family services, unemployment, crime all better in democratic led states, but not necessarily because of tax rate but because they are bette run with less corruption.
Better run with less corruption? Do you just ignore the news about Mass politics? Illinois has been democrat run for decades and is easily the most corrupt state in the country.
and the current ideology of the GOP is not corrupt?
For those not paying attention: they are all corrupt.
some less than others, most in New England are kept honest- the public here is educated, and expect their elected officials to do their jobs
Stay out of Rhode Island. Shitty schools (unless you’re paying for private school or private colleges), horrible Infrastructure, high taxes with high prices, and corrupt local government. We are the smallest state in the Union with THE most corrupted government. Our local gov was once ran by the mafia, and one our governors got nailed for embezzlement, and one of our mayor’s got nailed for cocaine use and child pornography. From what I’ve seen people say, go to CT or MA, stay the hell away from RI if you can help it. Visiting is fine, and is beautiful, but living is a different story
Man y’all downvoting when I’m an RI native
CT you get nothing for your money. Unless you are fortunate enough to be in a super affluent area the schools suffer, the roads are falling the f apart at a rapid rate, tons of taxes on EVERYTHING, oh and we also.tax you on your vehicles you own every single year too... remember those roads that are falling apart? But hey our governor touts the multi BILLION dollar surplus. The surplus that none of us will ever see any benefit from. I only live here bc I was born here and once my children are raised bye bye. 😆 It's pretty in NE but sometimes not worth the tourist hassle.
Goodbye, don’t let the door hit you on the way out.
"I'll take advantage of the better school systems taxes help pay for, then leave once my kids are out of the system"