Quote:
Originally Posted by PeppyGPhiB
First of all, I do NOT live in Texas. No offense to the Texans on this board.
There are many people in metropolitan areas that live in apartments and ride public transportation to work. It doesn't mean they don't own a car; they just drive their car less often, and probably just don't like sitting in traffic and paying for expensive daily parking. So I'm not sure where you get this idea that people who don't own homes and choose not to own cars or drive them to work every day don't make much money. Try telling that to New Yorkers, or San Franciscans, or Seattlites.
I happen to live in Washington - Seattle area to be more specific - a state that overall just has a higher cost of living. I live in an apartment, because it costs a fortune to buy a house here and it's not easy for most single people to do. I do own a car, but I used to park it every day and ride the Express bus to work because I didn't like sitting in traffic and paying $21 a day to park in my office tower. Now that I've changed jobs, I'm back to driving my hour-or-so commute. This state has the highest gas taxes in the country, which for me makes a difference but for those who take the bus/train, it doesn't mean as much. Our sales tax is higher than average, and according to this chart, our property taxes aren't crazy either.
What I'm saying is that clearly people in certain states are taxed more than others...all is not fair in love and taxes.
ETA: I forgot about another tax my state collects, but most people don't have to pay it - Tobacco tax. Washington's is one of the highest. But again, it's another example of lifestyle choices driving your tax burden.
Here's a chart on how states rank in taxes: http://articles.moneycentral.msn.com...sForTaxes.aspx |
Sorry, for some reason I thought you were in Texas.
But, the point I was trying to make was that people that don't have a car or house here, in OK, where we do pay income tax, most likely do not have a high enough income to have to file taxes.
The people in major metropolitan areas pay for their property taxes through their extremely high rents, and they pay the rest through the higher sales taxes. Income tax seems like a lot when you have to write the check, but when I added up the entirety of sales tax, it was so much more. All I'm saying is that even without income tax, you're still paying that tax somewhere, it's just called something different.