[quote=jstoesz]
A note about taxes. I dare you to compare the tax burden of a CA resident to a MN resident. After income tax, sales tax, gas tax…there is no comparison. Just saying, taxes are a bad subject for you. [/quote]
mmkay.
Income tax. Assuming married filing jointly with 100k of income (nice round number), CA income tax, according to the online calculator, comes out to $5,008. MN does not have an online calculator, but I ran the numbers using tax brackets from bankrate.com and I got $6,485.
Sales tax. CA: 8.75%, MN (Brooklyn Park): 7.275%.
Property tax. No brainer, MN is higher (it’s going to be hard to find a state whose property taxes are lower than in CA, thank Howard Jarvis for that). Partly offset by higher house prices in CA.
Gas tax. CA: 35c/gal, MN: 27.5c/gal.
I have to call it a draw.
[quote]I ditched the MM tracts, because MN just doesn’t have the asian population to support the demographic comparison. So I took a near by Linden hills neighborhood and looked for a comparable in SD. In the NY times demographic link.[/quote]
I have no idea who buys houses in Mission Hills. Most likely not young couples with children (MH is not renown for its schools.) I used MM as a benchmark of a reasonably affordable neighborhood with good schools. Asian presence is irrelevant. If you want to prove the thesis that SD is unaffordable, you need to demonstrate safe neighborhoods in Minneapolis/Spokane/Denver which are substantially cheaper than MM.
