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Comment by welshwelsh

4 years ago

But taxes are trivial compared to cost of living.

For example median rent in Austin is $1360 vs $4150 for San Francisco. Over 300% higher.

On the other hand, how much higher are taxes in SF? Like 10% higher at most. Completely trivial.

I get your point about marginal costs, but I think in general SF taxes contribute to making the city a more developed and attractive place to live and ultimately make people more, not less likely to move there. If the rent was the same nearly everyone would choose California over Texas.

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welshwelsh

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xyzzyz  4 years ago

If you’re a senior software engineer, moving from SF to Seattle will immediately increase your after tax income by $30k, even if you ignore difference in cost of living. This means effectively increasing your after tax income by 15%. That’s a huge raise.

onlyrealcuzzo  4 years ago

If you make $500k, you pay ~$50k in state income taxes in CA.

That's ~$4200 per month, which does not seem trivial compared to $0 in TX, FL, NV, WA, etc.

That could very well make up a decent portion of your entire spending bill in those states - allowing you to save / invest maybe another 10-20%. This (combined with the lower cost state) could help you retire a decade earlier.

Compared to <$2k per month in GA / Atlanta, it seems like something one might consider.

  • jjav  4 years ago

    > That's ~$4200 per month, which does not seem trivial compared to $0 in TX, FL, NV, WA, etc.

    But you'll have a much harder time finding that 500K job in TX, FL, NV, WA.