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[quote=Anonymous]Just to chime in from Florida (former dc person)…..

I didn’t move here for the tax relief but it is nonetheless a meaningful difference. People up north like to say it’s a wash after property taxes and insurance, but you have to be pretty lower income for that to be true.

Our $1.5m tiny row house in downtown dc had around $5000 in insurance a year and I can’t remember what property tax was but I think either $5k or $8k. That was ten years ago so adjust upward for inflation.

In Florida we were able to buy a 3000 sf house in an excellent school district. Property taxes are currently $10.5k. Our house is circa 1950 and has zero hurricane protection and we’re pretty close to water, but above flood level, so our insurance is decently high at $12k. So we pay $22.5k a year for a very nice house in a very nice neighborhood. Compared to around $10-13k in dc. So around $9-12k more in Florida.

But we were paying 9.5 percent income tax in dc. You don’t have to be good at math to see that a household making $100k would already be at a wash by moving to Florida. Much above that and you’re way ahead. Our income happens to be very high (remote workers still tied to nyc salaries) so when we moved here ten years ago we saved around $50k in taxes after taking into account the extra $10k for property expenditures. Our income continues to go up so last year we saved around $200k.

Obviously if you’re retired and on just social security, the income tax savings would be significantly less. But it’s disingenuous to suggest a move to Florida is a wash for a typical dcum UMC type worker.

Also, we do a lot more “cultural” stuff in Florida than dc because dc was a pain to deal with crap and expensive. We went to an outdoor “pops” symphony Friday night for $25 and next Friday we’re going to our local indie theater company for $25. Tomorrow I’m going to see a pretty famous “dc” person at a speaker series. All really enjoyable shows, and stuff we just didn’t do in dc because it was such a pain. Here, it’s never more than a 20 min drive, no real traffic, and there’s always easy free open lot parking at all these venues so no annoying parking garages taking thirty mins to get in and out of. [/quote]

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