Father of 2 awesome boys; husband to Ahu; friend to many; founder of Renkara Media Group; level 85 balance/feral druid and arcane mage; scuba diver; rock climber; bodybuilder; rower; aspiring marathon finisher; pianist; Pioneer; poet; foodie; Battlestar Galactica and Dexter fan; James Bond wannabe; CoreAnimator; Duder; snowboarder; wine geek; history buff; not afraid of sharks; vodka drinker; iPhone junkie; GTDFTW; Chicagoan; lifeguard
My wife and I have decided to move out of Chicago in 2011. We love Chicago but we hate the winters. Thus, we are moving south. However, choosing which state and city to live in is proving to be a challenge. To help in making the decision, I will be doing a series of articles where I compare various measurements between a set of final candidate cities.
As mentioned in an earlier post, my wife and I are moving from Chicago to warmer weather. Of course, there are lots of states warmer than Illinois. So let's narrow the list down a bit.
My wife and I, like all citizens of the State of Illinois, pay a flat 3% state income tax. I understand the need for states to tax citizens. Taxes pay for roads, education, health care, and other expenses. But consider the roads in Illinois. If you live in Illinois, and particularly in Chicago, you know there are really only two seasons: winter and construction season.
Why is this? The reason is that Illinois roads take a severe beating from its extremely cold winters and hot summers. The concrete in the roads and the ground underneath the roads contracts in the winter and expands in the summer. This constant cycle wears the roads down quickly and, thus, Illinois spends a large amount of money maintaining these roads.
So it would make sense that states in warmer climates might have lower state income taxes since they don't have the same cyclical weather as Illinois. To my surprise a few years ago, I found there are some states which have no state income tax. They are able to pay their expenses either from sales tax, property tax, or other taxes, but have no need of income taxes.
Assuming we find a state with a reasonable cost of living, including reasonable property taxes, it seems a good idea to look at moving to a state with no state income tax.
Are there any states in a warm climate with no state income tax? This information can be found here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_income_tax There are only three: Florida, Nevada, and Texas.
So, for this article, we'll leave it at these three.
