Best retirement states for lower property and income taxes specifically + climate consideration

Might seem trivial, but public services are also wonky in some states. A retired couple who moved from Boston, mentioned there new community has private sanitation services. And its been a revolving door to the point, where their hired company just up and vanished one month. Garbage piled up and well that became a literal dump for a while.
We have private trash service in many parts of Texas, including in my last three locations. Never had any issues. City of Austin has municipal trash, but I quit 5 years ago, had enough moved to the suburbs.

Water is generally speaking municipal and not cheap but in this part of Texas you are the very west extent of lush-er-ish climate and vegetation. 100 miles west of here is desert. Austin and San Antonio are rapidly growing and will grow even more in the future. There are finite water resources and I imagine it will get even more expensive in the future. There is not enough water for all uses and agriculture farther downstream in the coastal plain has had to cut back to support the large cities in this area.

Where I am we are on Pedernales Co-op who have around 200K customers, the electricity is cheap. Another problem with moving elsewhere in Texas, the "open marketplace" is more expensive. I cannot choose electricity and I am glad, the co-ops and municipal providers are generally cheaper than the open marketplace. 12 cents per kwh. I guess I could just get a wind turbine if I stayed in Texas. Or solar. Or both.

Gas is cheap here as far as I know. Haven't compared.
 
That's how it is in much of Virginia. In the news recently are stories about how Fairfax County is having problems getting trash picked up because one of the private trash companies went out of business and the other one is really understaffed. This is one of the richest counties in the USA and it's right near Washington, DC...

Another thing about Virginia--they don't like street lighting. I was driving on a 4-lane road the other day with a center median and thinking to myself "If this road were in any other state it would have street lighting but it's almost completely dark". Even extends to interstates--the interchange of I81 and I66 has no lighting whatsoever. It's pretty rare in this part of the country to have an interchange between two interstates with no lighting.
I would love that, the light pollution around here is excessive. You need to go 150 miles west of Austin to really see the stars. Or to Big Bend. You really can't see the stars from the Texas Hill Country anymore.
 
I would love that, the light pollution around here is excessive. You need to go 150 miles west of Austin to really see the stars. Or to Big Bend. You really can't see the stars from the Texas Hill Country anymore.

There's plenty of lighting in private parking lots and such, but very little on the roads. The county apparently makes developers put two streetlights in front of the access road to their subdivision, so you have dumb things like a lightly-used intersection to a development with lighting but half a mile down the road a much busier intersection is completely dark.
 
Well, you do get the folks that advocate for low taxes because the government would just waste the money anyway. I always wonder why not fix the wasteful spending, address the root cause of the problem?
Unfortunately, you need 50% +1 to do that, and more than 50% have bought the idea that someone else is paying. People like to think they are getting "free stuff."
 
With possible exception of parts of Nevada, those have pretty severe climates. They are nice when it isn't winter though... Bonus if you like dirt and gravel roads...
We are thinking up there 8-9 months of the year and then somewhere warmer during the winter months. We have 5-7 years to look, so no hurry. We get to travel searching for places.
 
Dont mention North Dakota, we are getting flooded with Minnesotans and lots of people from out of the country. People are realizing its stays a nice 70 degrees year around here, LOL Indoors
 
My wife's parents retired moving from NYC to Latitude Margaritaville Hilton Head, SC. They love it. Been there once and I have mixed feelings about it.
I retired years ago and moved from NYC to Miami Beach. Now with super high flood insurance and other factors decided to move back to Astoria Queens. Plus I do not want to deal with this 24/7 jungle heat. I would rather have cold weather.
 
I retired years ago and moved from NYC to Miami Beach. Now with super high flood insurance and other factors decided to move back to Astoria Queens. Plus I do not want to deal with this 24/7 jungle heat. I would rather have cold weather.
Why not split the difference and move halfway up the coast? I’m not sure I could move back into the cold, not after acclimating to someplace warmer. (just a guess, its not like I’ve tried this.)
 
Miami Beach has seen a big increase in crime over the past 10 years, stay away. Lots of other places with sun, sand, palm trees and ocean to stay at.

Way too many aspiring social media folks, rappers, thugs, strippers, sketchy trash in Miami Beach, plus all the noise, traffic, congestion and problems.
 
Why not split the difference and move halfway up the coast? I’m not sure I could move back into the cold, not after acclimating to someplace warmer. (just a guess, its not like I’ve tried this.)
All my family are all now in Queens,Brooklyn,Manhattan and North Jersey.... ..Near the Lincoln Tunnel. They all used to live in South Florida.

Miami Beach has seen a big increase in crime over the past 10 years, stay away. Lots of other places with sun, sand, palm trees and ocean to stay at.
Way too many aspiring social media folks, rappers, thugs, strippers, sketchy trash in Miami Beach, plus all the noise, traffic, congestion and problems.
All that is 100% true. Gridlock 24/7 in Miami Beach. There is also no rent control for the renters here so the landlord can raise your rent from 1100 a month to 3K a month or more.
 
There's a lot of things on the Interwebs about "Best states to retire in" or "Best places to retire" and there's lots of things that kind of delve into things that aren't truly important to me.

I know we have lots of retirement discussions around here but I'd like to steer this one in the direction of most interest to myself, of course, things can and do go off the rails around here, but let's try not get this locked with irrelevant content or petty bickering. Pretty please?

What I would like:
Low property taxes, or much lower property taxes than I have now. I am paying $12K a year property taxes in Texas on a roughly $500K property.
Low or no income taxes.
Little less intense summers than Texas, but not somewhere where it snows a lot or they put salt on the roads. Average temp above freezing Nov-Feb.
Somewhere with some geographical relief, i.e., not flat.
Not too expensive property, would like an acre or acres and a small house is fine in retirement, looking to buy in the $500-$750K range depending on current property value in 12-15 years.
Not too far from city conveniences - I'm ok being out of town but I don't want to drive two hours to the doctor or the grocery store.

Here is a list of states with no or low income taxes from 1/4/23

This site has both property and income taxes.

Most tax friendly as listed on the 2nd site:
Wyoming - Hard no. Too cold in wintertime. Unless there's some secret temperate spot in WY that I don't know about.

Nevada - Maybe northern, southern is a hard no due to intense summertime weather. Reno weather is maybe pushing cold limit. Low humidity which is a plus in the summer makes 90s temps not so hot. Good mountain views, which I love. I ski now but not sure I would in 20 years. Plus for being close to, but not in, California. Have lots of relatives in CA bay area but don't want to live there due to taxes and general frutiness. But I like to visit and reachable by car is a plus.

Florida - Hard no due to heat and humidity, uninteresting topography.

Tennessee - Very favorable in the eastern portion, probably my #1 choice so far. Mountains and lakes to enjoy. Johnson City TN highs not above 90 in any month, perfect. High temps only below 50 in December and January, average lows below freezing in Dec, Jan, Feb, pretty decent not great, park the cars in the garage so we never scrape ice. Chattanooga little warmer in both summertime and wintertime, 90.5 July with mean max of 97, but no average month below freezing lows.

Other considerations:
Alabama - Far north/northeastern, maybe. Alabama doesn't put income tax on pensions, which I will have. Tax rates vary by county but they seem to average around .33 per thousand. Property values relatively lower than other states. Huntsville AL weather average high July 91.5, Aug 91.3 which is ok not great, better than Texas at least. Mean maximum 97 July and Aug, ok if it's only 1-2 days a month. No month with average high below 50 or low below freezing, which is perfect. Hills and lakes to see.

Of the states with no/low income taxes not already mentioned
Texas-looking to leave. Too hot and crushingly high property taxes.
Washington - possible on wet side, and far away from Seattle. But I think properties are too expensive to consider. Dry side too cold in winter. I grew up in Oregon so that would be a pretty natural fit, but, the prices of real estate are high.
South Dakota - too cold
Alaska - no on many factors
New Hampshire - too cold, salt on the roads
North Dakota - 2.9% income tax - too cold
Pennsylvania - 3.07% income taxes - seen some really cheap nice properties there, but it would have to be in the farthest south possible and nearest to moderating temperatures, ie SE. Probably too cold even at that. And salt on the roads.
Indiana - 3.23 Income tax - too cold, has salt on the roads. I need my car to last in retirement.
Meat Chicken - 4.25% income tax - is this a joke? way too cold.
Arizona - 4.5% income tax - it'd have to be something high elevation in the north of the state. Maybe. Phoenix/Tuscon - hard no.
Colorado - 4.63% too expensive, too cold, too crowded, like visiting but I don't want to live there.

States with low property taxes not previously mentioned, less than $1000 per $100K of value
Hawaii - I'd rather go expat if I wanted to live somewhere tropical.
Louisiana - too humid, too 3rd world.
DC - too expensive, too cold
South Carolina - not sure, I'd have to do my research. Don't know much about it.
Delaware - see DC
Utah - too many Mormons
WV - too cold
Arkansas - maybe would consider NW or other hilly region, need to look at climate charts.
Idaho- too cold
Mississippi - see Louisiana
New Mexico - seems like most of the areas I like are expensive, but would consider if it fit the budget and had views.

Expat - Common issue is being far from family in USA
Sao Paulo, Brazil or locations further south in Brazil. Wife is native, has dual citizenship, I could probably obtain it if I wanted. Wife's family is large. Cheap, low taxes, cheap property prices. Higher altitude locations preferred, more moderate weather. Crime is an issue in many Brazilian locations. In Sao Paulo and other medium to large cities - air pollution is prevalent at higher levels than most of the USA.
South of Spain - bargains to be found, exchange rate currently favorable but unknown in future, expat friendly
Balkan states - nice, cheap property prices, long term political stability unknown.

Other suggestions? Be honest about the costs and the climate.
Don't focus just on state income tax rather on cost of living in general. For example Florida has no income tax but has high real estate prices, high property tax, high sales tax, high medical costs, alligators and huricanes.

Delaware checks off a lot of boxes in my mind.
 
Old retired people that paid taxes their whole working life, should not be paying any sort of tax, on their limited fixed income. Especially ones that don't have some high paying investments. How many here could pay for all the inflation and 6k or more home taxes, on about 1800 per month?
 
chippewa falls wisconsin,low taxs,cost of homes reasonable,low crime,,and no outside bugs,,winter that is fridged
 
Old retired people that paid taxes their whole working life, should not be paying any sort of tax, on their limited fixed income. Especially ones that don't have some high paying investments. How many here could pay for all the inflation and 6k or more home taxes, on about 1800 per month?
I'm going to be as polite as possible.

Old retired people call 911 more often than not because of falling, needing help, or any other situation more specific to older people. It is not their faults but they are using community resources. If you don't tax them someone else will be paying for that cost.

Middle age people work while they are raising family and paying mortgage, they are the most financially stressed one, not old retired people with income. If income stress is the concern then income based tax is the solution, not age based.

How is it fair that someone working their entire life and pay tax elsewhere should just come to your community to retire and pay no tax (so you have to cover their share while you are working and raising family in the same community)? How do you prevent that sort of "abuse" if you have age based tax policy?
 
Back
Top