WARNING - VENT - NYS TAXES...Who wants to join me?

[EthansMom]

I feel your pain. We're currently in CT, which has some outrageous taxes of it's own.

I think part of the problem here in CT is that everything is run at the city level, instead of the county level. In all of the other states I've lived in, we've paid house/car taxes based on our county. Here, each town has it's own tax assessor. So, that's like 20 or 30 tax assessors in a county where everywhere else I've lived would've had 5-10 assessors for the county. And it's the same thing with the road's crews. Our small town has it's own roads crew, where every other state I've lived in had county roads crews. Seems kinda silly to have a whole roads crew for one very small NE town.

 

[Pigeon]

I'm a NYS resident and I don't mind paying taxes at all. The only taxes I do resent are the proportion of the Federal taxes that are going to bankroll the war and line the pockets of Halliburton and the like.

 

[Nancy]

I'll vent with you!

I pay MORE in state taxes then I do in Federal taxes!

I get a nice Federal refund every year, but no state refund!

AND my city and county are being run by state control boards. My salary (as a city employee) is frozen by the control board and the city and county finances are in a mess. Where is all that tax money going????

This is the first year in ages that we actually got some money BACK from the state. I keep waiting for a knock on the door telling me.."guess what? we want our money back" The control boards are such a joke, they do nothing. If my husband would be willing to move and be packed and gone so fast you wouldn't even see my dust.We pay outrageous taxes on purchases, we live close to this huge power plant and yet my electric bills are so high it's not even funny. All the low cost power goes elsewhere. It's petty bad when I try to save all my kids clothing purchases for no tax weeks so I can save lots of money. Why there is anyone left in Erie County is beyond me.

 

[JoyG]

Why there is anyone left in Erie County is beyond me.

I actually moved here from Long Island. I've found it's like going from the frying pan into the fire. I left Long Island b/c first year teachers don't make enough money to buy a house or raise a family in that market. I found the starting pay there was the same in Buffalo but 11 years ago the cost of living in Buffalo was a lot less.

Anyway, now our county pays more in sales tax then even NYC or LI. That just blows my mind...and most salaries here are a lot less than those down state.

Anyway one of the funniest things I saw when I first moved here was a billboard painted on an abandoned building downtown. It said, "Will the last person to leave Buffalo please turn out the lights!"

 

[bicker]

We've lived in New York, New Jersey, Connecticut and Massachusetts. They don't call us Taxachusetts for nothin'.

 

[arminnie]

That money's going somewhere, and it isn't going into corruption, as many folks here would love to think.

Maybe not in your part of the country, but there's been major corruption in Arkansas and Louisiana. These are just some of the ones who got caught:

From the 90s:
Edwin Edwards - former Governor of LA currently serving federal prison term for racketeering and extortion.

Arkansas State Sen. Nick Wilson, D-Pocahontas, managed to stay both in office and in power for 28 years but no one in the state was surprised when he was named as the ring leader of a set of complicated schemes that netted the participants nearly $2 million. - currently serving prison term.

Former Arkansas Governor Jim Guy Tucker - plead guilty to fraud and removed from office.

Current:
Orleans Parrish School District - tens of millions of dollars unaccounted for, phantom entries on payroll, etc.

William "Dollar Bill" Jefferson, U.S. representative from LA - currently under FBI investigation - large sums of cash retrieved from his home. Aides currently pleading guilty.

Not corruption per se but extremely wasteful - Arkansas, a very small and poor state, has 75 counties. There are WAY more school districts than counties. A small county with little population may have 3 school districts with corresponding overhead - administrators, superintendent, etc.

I am very much in favor of spending for education even though I do not have children in school. Our future depends upon having educated citizens to be productive members of society. I abhor the waste that I've seen rob children of an opportunity to get an education - New Orleans is a prime example.