I think sir you way overestimated the Federal taxes he needs to pay. Assuming he has a mortgage of ~$750K @ 4.5% rate, his itemized deduction will be approximately $33K so his adjusted Federal Gross will be ~$460K and his total Federal tax will be ~$110K, not the $200K you assumed. So, he has ~$390K to spend, not the $300K you wrote. Of course living in NYC he has to pay state tax and city tax which I don't have a clue.
Taxation is theft....inflation is to....Ludwig von mises wrote much about the fluidness of "classes" and the fallacies of class conflict.. income tax is a tax on the up and comer not established wealth who mostly pays capital gains .. people who earn a paycheck get hit the hardest with taxes.. and inflation.. inflation is continuous and wage rates go up slowly and discreetly.. inflation penializes the saver to the benefit of the debter . Constantly having to roll 1031 exhchanges in real estate and compound returns pre tax is the way to exponential growth . I just bought a property where the owner in the governments eyes made money and invokes a taxable event...meanwhile with property tax he made no return over the 33 years considering a risk free investment comparison...now on top of that he has a capital gain to pay from his original basis so he definitely lost money... If they don't tax it away they will inflate it away from you... This has created a society of leveraged people hitting for the fences chasing yield... Making investment decisions they normally would not... Buying riskier assets then they normally would..... Sink it into people's heads taxation is never on the rich People read some real economics... Ludwig von mises.....
NY state marginal rate for that income is 6.85%, City tax is 3.88%. 750k probably buys tiny single B/R not enough for family 4. You are also forgetting pretty high monthly maintenance, higher interest rate because of Jumbo loan, property tax, sales tax. State and city tax are no longer deductible for federal tax now. Only way to increase the take home pay is to move to burbs and send the kids to public schools.
Don't complain, we pay more state income tax in California. We do have better weather, if you don't mind earth quake, fire, flooding and drought.
I hope you left not because you voted with your feet. I won't leave Southern California because I love it here tax or no tax. Have a good day.
Not for tax reasons. I have mentioned in different thread before. My kids are in private school which costs me 60k (for 2 kids together). Quality of this school is similar to public school in NY or NJ. So there was no free lunch, atleast for me.
Thanks for your feedback, just checked the tuition fees for next year at my kids' current school and it's 33500usd per head, starting from primary school, the same as in the New York Lycee Francais. It's an international school, while there are a few families staying long term, sometimes running huge businesses, most kids are transient and they won't get much connections from there, if any, plus lots of the kids are from mid executive expat families who wouldn't be able to live in the fancy areas of their home country. Kids are fine, but those are not connections worth paying a premium for. Not even convinced the education is particularly good (cool school overall). New York Lycee Francais sounds like a better deal seen in that light. Interesting discussions about the trappings of life in expensive cities, i've lived in a few expensive districts and found much value in the european ones, usually income and opportunities are higher and quality of life good( China fails miserably in that respect, very expensive for families and poor quality of life ) The article linked in the OP is right though stressing how this family is actually increasing its net worth in a non insignificant manner through mortgage and IRA, they really don't seem struggling, although their lifestyle sounds far from luxurious (18k a year on holidays sounds cheap, cars and apartment are mid range) Anyway, in a retiring mood, about to move to Madrid, pay half the current price for one of the most recognized schools there (15000euros is top of the range in Spain). Mosts costs supposed to be significantly lower with a decent quality of life, although the ambiance might be more conductive to farniente than hard work and risk taking - good enough for me, not so sure about the kids. About private/international school prices, i'm not sure it is the same everywhere but over here the average yearly tuition increase is around 6% in local currency, way above inflation, worth taking this into account for those who plan to have their kids do their whole education there (not easy to switch back to state sponsored education depending on the language of education where one lives)