I have a couple of thoughts on this.
First of all the gross that you’re paying, in terms of rate, is well below what I’m paying. I know my federal alone is higher than that “all in” number you quote.
When you add in the Virginia income tax, sales tax, and then you start rubbing salt in the wound over property tax, particularly on vehicles, it’s a solid 15% over the number that you are suggesting.
That is too high, in my opinion. Not marginal rate, but an overall rate, of nearly 15% higher than what you’re saying is “reasonable” sounds, to me at least, to be “unreasonable”.
Note, the city of Virginia Beach raised the property tax on my 2016 Toyota tundra from $680 last year, to nearly $800 this year. That’s right, for the rest of you BITOG crowd that is not in VA, I pay $800/year, just to own an 8 year old truck, and the total tax bill, just for cars, is over $2,000/year. That’s not registration, or insurance, those also have a cost, this is just the property tax levy, in municipalities of Virginia.
The overall burden is one of the reasons we are considering leaving the state of Virginia. You may think it’s reasonable, but I do not, and there are states that are much better. Now, for us, the state of Virginia has made a significant step in the right direction, by excepting tax on a small part of my military retirement check. That’s a step in the right direction. But not a big enough one to keep me in VA.