Agree that the total tax burden will never be zero, but we are talking about a specific tax – income tax – that is levied on distributions from pre-tax plans, such as 401K plans. Property tax, sales tax, gas tax, etc., do not apply (at least not yet) to these distributions.

CA has high gasoline and sales taxes. It has low property taxes IF you just look at the percentage assessed, but plenty high IF you look at the amount paid. We own homes in California and Hawaii of approximately equal value, but the property taxes on our HI house are much lower than in CA.