What state/city charges tax on staple items?
And asking a realtor friend to do a market analysis on your property can make a difference too. The estimates take into account recent home sales nearby. But sometimes the nearby sales are nothing like yours.
Personally, I still find it kind of amazing that the valuation on my 1951 2bedroom frame house has now surpassed $100,000. I bought the place in 1984 when mortgage rates were over 13%. I lucked into a 10% note. Paid $45,500 for the house. Two years later, the S&L savings scandal yanked real estate values. My house plummeted to a market value of about $21,000. Slowly inches up over the years to more than $50 grand. Then market tanked again. Back down around $30 grand. The inching is pretty impressive to my eyes now, but I figure a market tank is due soon. And am MORE concerned about the gazillions of apartments going up. All I can think is “did we not learn anything in the 1980’s? Too many unoccupied apts=ghetto-before-their-time. Balloon mortgages = foreclosures. Sheesh
I think thats coming pretty soon as well…
Dallas seems to have enough growth that prices may level out or decrease, but I doubt there will be a crash.
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Nope. I’m totally fine paying someone a small fee to do that for me. Plus we don’t have broken things. Ours was based on the neighborhood average and similar homes to get the reduction.
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Where are you seeing gazillions of unoccupied apartments?
South Dakota.
Ahh, I did not know about that state, but then none of the companies I have done sales taxes for have had locations in SD.
Not quite. When you’re retired you will reach an age where you no longer pay the school tax component, drastically reducing your property taxes.
Not entirely correct.
Each school district sets the rules for 65+ (retirement doesn’t factor into it.)
Once a senior citizen exemption is filed with the appraisal district, typically property taxes are CAPPED at the rate/level in place at the time you turn 65.
HOWEVER. If someone makes improvements that change the square footage of the dwelling, the new construction is calculated at the prevailing rate at that point in time. Then capped there.
If you buy a new home, you don’t get tax rate rolled back to the rate when turning 65. You pay rate at time of purchase, and -that- is capped.
It’s only a $10,000 exemption off the value of your home, after age 65. Some taxing entities may offer an additional $3000 exemption. The school tax still applies to the unexempted value of your home.
https://comptroller.texas.gov/taxes/property-tax/exemptions/age65older-disabled-faq.php
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Yes, yes, yes, the devil is in the details. It’s still more correct than the blanket statement that I pointed out.
Geez…
I had an economics course in my graduate studies where the well published professor said that the only fair tax is a sales tax. It encourages saving, it taxes at a proportional rate for everyone since we all have to buy something and it is collected at the time of the sale.
The question then is is that truly fair? Because there’s no marginal sales tax rate. Everyone is charged the same amount regardless of income. So 10% to someone making $10,000 a year vs someone making $100,000 is a huge difference in burden.
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No. The person making 10K should be spending a lot less money than the person making 100K. They will be charged 10% on say the 9.5K they spend. The person making 100k might spend 80-90K.
If the spending is not proportional, the person making 10K needs to A) earn more money, and B) spend less
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We all have a base amount we have to spend to survive though. They’ll be spending less as a rule already, they have to. You can only spend so little before you can’t cut anything more.
Also the person making $100k will not be spending $80-90k on things taxed by sales tax. They’ll be stashing a lot of it away in savings and investments (something the $10k won’t have the luxury of doing) which, if there’s only a sales tax, won’t even be touched by any tax.
And ‘earn more money’ is easier said than done for many.
If you have hands and feet, have a clean background check, and can work , you can make 20K in Dallas. You should stay with family to save money, and go to community college for welding or some other technical skill so you can make 18-20 /hr atleast. That will pump your earnings up more, especially if you can work multiple shifts.
I would encourage everyone to PERSONALLY dispute their property tax bill. I have done it twice in a couple of decades and inbetween I have used a tax service. I get very small reductions with the tax service, but when I have gone in myself, I have typically gotten 15-20% reductions vs. the new appraised amount. It may not work as well if you just bought the home in the last couple of years. The tax hearing board is made up of citizens like us, not government employees and if you are professional and courteous to them they will bend over backwards to help you get most of what you are asking for. I got reductions based on older roof, older major appliances, older interior vs. newer remodels of other surrounding houses, my price per sq. ft. comparison was too high and my depreciation rate was higher than may neighbors. I even got them to remove most of my pool add on value based on me turning it into a pond. Which wasn’t hard to prove when they saw pictures of the green water and the water plants growing in it. 
–Leon
Actually, the County assesses the taxes, and school districts collect the lion’s share of it, with Muni governments way behind that.
Not exactly. Unprepared foodstuff is not taxed (i.e., not restaurant or deli food); lower income residents spend a higher proportion of their income on groceries (food), for which there is no sales tax. If someone spends a quarter of their income on untaxable food, that has the effect of reducing their effective tax rate by 1/4.
A number of states have sales tax on groceries, including staples. Nowhere in Texas though.