Bethesda vs Vienna/GF/Reston? Violent crime in MoCo is concerning

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Vienna has a lot of theft due to metro. Anywhere near Metro is going to get more crime. Anywhere with a lot of affluence is going to get more theft. I love Vienna but it's not the safest part of Nova.

Very little crime in Vienna.

[Anonymous]

Everywhere that's not my safe neighborhood is Ganglandia!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:VA all the way. Why pay county income tax?? Why be worried about crime? Why worry about energy tax? Why deal with a deep blue area when you can be in the middle in NOVA?

VA has lots of taxes that MD does not have. Grocery tax, super-high restaurant tax (10% vs 6%), car tax, higher property taxes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:VA all the way. Why pay county income tax?? Why be worried about crime? Why worry about energy tax? Why deal with a deep blue area when you can be in the middle in NOVA?

VA has lots of taxes that MD does not have. Grocery tax, super-high restaurant tax (10% vs 6%), car tax, higher property taxes.

https://www.mymcmedia.org/maryland-residents-shoulder-11th-highest-tax-burden-in-u-s/

[Anonymous]

Re VA car tax: https://www.dcurbanmom.com/jforum/posts/list/1086474.page#23521431

[Anonymous]

Taxes you write off so it’s not terrible unless you’re driving a 100k car.

Second, take a household income of 250k, that’s 7.5k in income tax that goes to county. A 30 year career is 225k in additional taxes paid for deep blue policies. Sounds like a good deal right? Shoot I can put my kids through school with that much.

Grocery tax, restaurant tax etc etc, how much are you eating??? I bet it’s a wash once you calculate the energy taxes you pay in MD.

[Anonymous]

For someone wanting to actually get a start on figuring out their tax burden in different jurisdictions, this would be good reading:

https://www.arlnow.com/2019/02/19/ask-eli-does-virginia-washington-dc-or-maryland-have-the-most-favorable-taxes/

Kind of stupid to simply say -- Maryland has a county tax, just add up that county tax, and you'd pay that much less in VA. That's like saying, Florida has no income tax, so you'd save 100% in state taxes by moving to Florida.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:For someone wanting to actually get a start on figuring out their tax burden in different jurisdictions, this would be good reading:

https://www.arlnow.com/2019/02/19/ask-eli-does-virginia-washington-dc-or-maryland-have-the-most-favorable-taxes/

Kind of stupid to simply say -- Maryland has a county tax, just add up that county tax, and you'd pay that much less in VA. That's like saying, Florida has no income tax, so you'd save 100% in state taxes by moving to Florida.

Tbh though it is a pretty good heuristic. It is very very hard to end up paying MORE tax in Nova than MoCo unless you waayyyyy overspent on your car. I make 400k and have 180k in cars and I still save $10k on my taxes in Nova than when I lived in Chevy Chase

[Anonymous]

Also though notice how the Marylanders quickly turned this into a tax debate. The original post was about crime and yes MoCo crime has been twice that of Fairfax County for many years - it is not a new thing. There are... undesirable elements in MoCo.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:For someone wanting to actually get a start on figuring out their tax burden in different jurisdictions, this would be good reading:

https://www.arlnow.com/2019/02/19/ask-eli-does-virginia-washington-dc-or-maryland-have-the-most-favorable-taxes/

Kind of stupid to simply say -- Maryland has a county tax, just add up that county tax, and you'd pay that much less in VA. That's like saying, Florida has no income tax, so you'd save 100% in state taxes by moving to Florida.

Tbh though it is a pretty good heuristic. It is very very hard to end up paying MORE tax in Nova than MoCo unless you waayyyyy overspent on your car. I make 400k and have 180k in cars and I still save $10k on my taxes in Nova than when I lived in Chevy Chase

It does depend on your circumstances.

I'm self employed and have private care. I looked into VA to save on taxes but when I looked at the cost of private healthcare in VA and the choices, it didn't make a lot of sense to move. I maybe save $2500/yr if I were to move to VA, but the choice of health insurance is more limited. So, I'm staying put in MD for the time being.

I hate how healthcare works in this country.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:For someone wanting to actually get a start on figuring out their tax burden in different jurisdictions, this would be good reading:

https://www.arlnow.com/2019/02/19/ask-eli-does-virginia-washington-dc-or-maryland-have-the-most-favorable-taxes/

Kind of stupid to simply say -- Maryland has a county tax, just add up that county tax, and you'd pay that much less in VA. That's like saying, Florida has no income tax, so you'd save 100% in state taxes by moving to Florida.

Tbh though it is a pretty good heuristic. It is very very hard to end up paying MORE tax in Nova than MoCo unless you waayyyyy overspent on your car. I make 400k and have 180k in cars and I still save $10k on my taxes in Nova than when I lived in Chevy Chase

Totally fuzzy math, but believe what you want. Taxes are so complicated, so it's always hard for folks to actually run the numbers to get a true comparison (e.g., you say nothing about your property taxes). Your scenario is actually pretty similar to one in that blog post ("Chris"), and the difference is nowhere close to 10K. VA probably does have the lowest total taxes for high earners, but if you're making $400K, choosing where to live based on a difference of $4000 is a bit silly to me. But sure, if everything else is equal, then by all means, save that extra $4000 and live in VA.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Also though notice how the Marylanders quickly turned this into a tax debate. The original post was about crime and yes MoCo crime has been twice that of Fairfax County for many years - it is not a new thing. There are... undesirable elements in MoCo.

First post about taxes was 01/22/2023 18:01 which was someone advocating for Virginia.

[Anonymous]

Love vienna

[Anonymous]

Haven't read the whole thread but hard for me to believe there's a lot of serious crime in Bethesda. Silver Spring or Germantown, yes, but Bethesda?

Just seems like crime in Bethesda would be a tipping point that would cause the police to actually police and the prosecutors to actually prosecute. Kind of like Descano in Fairfax - he's a far-left, bleeding liberal, but he still threw the book at the hoodlum from DC who brandished a weapon at Tysons last year. At the end of the day they know where people w/influence and money will draw the line.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:VA all the way. Why pay county income tax?? Why be worried about crime? Why worry about energy tax? Why deal with a deep blue area when you can be in the middle in NOVA?

VA has lots of taxes that MD does not have. Grocery tax, super-high restaurant tax (10% vs 6%), car tax, higher property taxes.

Virginia has cheaper real property taxes than Maryland. That, combined with lower income taxes, means it's usually a net lower tax burden in Virginia.