[exged]

Taxes and rent are still bigger. For a senior FAANG engineer making $400k a year, CA income taxes are nearly $40k/year, and rent on a house is perhaps another $60k/year (alternatively, ~$100k/year for a mortgage). All other basic needs are a rounding error compared to that, even with a family.

[dmode]

I earn comparable salary. I paid ~20k in taxes last year. There is a ton you can deduct. And the tax rate is progressive.

[exged]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but the biggest CA income tax deduction available to most people is the mortgage interest and property tax deductions. So yes, you can deduct a lot of your state taxes - provided you're spending even more on an expensive home.

And yes, the tax rate is progressive, but the average rate is still around 9% at that income level (~36k). Marginal rate is just over 11%.

My overall point is just that almost all of the cost of living delta in CA is from taxes and housing. Didn't mean to get too deep into the numbers.

[andi999]

Wait, you only pay 40k tax on 400k? Or how much other taxes on salary are there in the US?

[glenngillen]

That’s just state tax (CA being one of the highest). They’ll have to pay the same federal rates as everyone else on top of that. I assume the reason for excluding it is that’d stay constant no matter where you live in the US.

[andi999]

So how high would this be?

[DavidPeiffer]

Bad math, 110k in federal taxes and 15k in FICA (social security, Medicare, Medicaid).

https://smartasset.com/taxes/income-taxes

[weebwoobfly]

Probably between city, state, and federal just under 50% total.

[mythz]

He's just talking about California State Taxes, not Federal Income Tax.

[rootsudo]

It took me a second to realize you just meant California State taxes....