This thread is one of many "Off Topic" discussions and should have been named as such, but was not.

No big deal. If you do not want to follow just do not open....easy.

 

I want to chime in but I'm too afraid to get tangled up as everyone has different opinions about different parts of the country. I'd just suggest that you research the area heavily. The USA varies tremendously from state to state.

 

If she has not earned an income, she won't be taxed. Your pension on the other hand WOULD count as income and would be taxed. The good news is that some states have ZERO state income taxes so you could reduce your cost by targeting those as potential residences.

There are also personal PROPERTY taxes in most states but it's FAR less than in most countries. When you buy a car in the USA, you pay taxes on that purchase. You also pay taxes on the value of that car each year. My '17 F-Type R costs about $600/year in property taxes but that could be as high as $2,000/year in other states. A home owner also pays taxes on the value of the home in the state they live in but those percentages vary considerably. I live in a 3,500 sq ft residence valued under $500K and pay about $3,500/year in property taxes for it. However, that same house in New Jersey might be worth $800K and is also taxed at a MUCH higher rate so friends of mine living in NJ in a smaller house are paying as much as $20,000/year just in property taxes. That is one of the reasons people are moving down to NC from NJ.

In regards to Social Security, it is true that some people who have been disabled either via injury or other reasons, can get an income from the government and there is no limit on the number of years but... and it's a HUGE but.. the amount of that income is so small it is very difficult to live on (i.e. around $18,000/year I think). People that pay into the system their entire working life will be able to draw out of the system based on the amount they contributed so the more you make the more you get back in retirement. That payment every year is 7% of your gross income so if you earned an average of $100K/year, you would have paid in $7,000 each for say 50 years then times $7K X 50 = $350,000 that person has paid into Uncle Sam/aka the government. Now here's the kicker... even someone who paid all that in still only gets about $30,000/year back out so if they retire at 67 (current retirement age) & they draw back out at $30K/year it will have taken them about 12 years to simply get their original "investment"/contribution back out without even calculating for the interest earned over that period. Doing some basic math for interest rates over the same period and the $350K would have been more like $1 million $s so in reality, none of us will EVER get back the $'s we put into the system. If your not at LEAST 62, you can't even get ANY retirement $'s so anyone who retires before that age has to spend their own savings in order to survive until they can reach retirement age. Most will continue to supplement their $30K/year government social security income with other savings earnings in order to be able to continue to live a comfortable life style so most don't even attempt to retire until they have a million or two stashed in their own private investment accounts.

I have a good friend here in the States that is looking into buying a $1 - $2 million $ place in southern Portugal. I hear it's a great place & sounds like a great idea. I don't have that kind of spending cash to drop into a "summer" home like he does but if you can swing a place in Portugal and simply visit your kids here in the States, you may get the best of both worlds. Good luck with the search!

 

Nevermind, already said.

 

Tax bite is very much dependent upon WHERE in the States one lives. The converse to your claim would be what we have here in Texas...no State income tax and inexpensive vehicle registration (no annual taxes, just the ~$85-100 to renew tags plus another $20 or so for the inspections. Some of my cars are actually less than $50 annually for registration. Property taxes are all over the place, with some areas being as high as $3 per $100 of valuation on the home, but I have been in other parts of the State that were under $2 per $100. Much depends on school district rates and whether one is inside the city limits or outside...

 

 

 

 

I think you'll all find this interesting reading, the USA is in there too...

http://www.oecd.org/tax/tax-policy/r...s-brochure.pdf

 

I think that anyone interested in the tax burden in the US would of necessity have to look at the State and even County/City level in order to arrive at anything remotely close to figures that could be used to make a decision on where to live and work.
Just as a for instance, the real estate tax for my $240K single family home on a 1/4 acre lot is $732.00. It should be noted that the same house would sell for tens of thousands of dollars in almost any suburban or urban location. Also, the state sales tax on vehicle is capped at $500.00 (recently raised from $300.00). There are generous exemptions in the SC tax code for retirement income.
We welcome newcomers as long as they leave their Yankee attitudes and "That's not how we did it back home" propensities.

 

We have a more diffuse taxation on the home you life in. The reference is the 'rent value' , this is stricly hypothetical, and dependant on too many variables. On the open market my 4-acre 350m² home next to the national park,
with horse riding tracks, cycling track and so on [ lots of tourism here], would be around € 400K . But its registered under a special tax law as a 'protected landscape' . The 'value' for tax purposes so becomes € 130K since the
land is exempt [partly forest] and the houses valued at 60% as you can not use it for all purposes as other homes/estates. Then there is a percentage that is added to your taxable income [ 0,7% for houses between € 75 - 1000 K].
This amount is added to your personal income, hence € 910 .Depending on your taxable income this means you pay 40-52% of this amount in taxes extra. But we have a series of sneaky taxes that use the same rental value,
like ' waterschapslasten ' ; the money you pay for keeping the rainwater out of your house. First this was only for houses located below sealevel, but now we also pay it, +20m above the sea.

But the highest is the council tax, This depends on how efficient the county works, but also depends on the amount of poor people in your area. As the council tax has an owners and a rental part. But if you are considered to be
poor [ 18% of the people with a steady income are considered to be poor , meaning they have after paying fixed costs, less then € 50 per adult per month foor food and clothes ], you do not have to pay at all. But the costs
are generated so the richer [ less poor mostly ] have to chip in. So these range from 0,045 to 0,27 percent. Someone in an 'avarage priced' house [ in 2016, since prices went bezirk] would pay between € 89 - 534 per year.

We get too many newcomers, too many asylum seekers which in reality are fortune seekers who don't want to work, but heared they get everything free in Western Europe...