The recent Sun-Times editorial about a “fair tax” on high retirement income caught my attention. At the end, it stated that when older people do move, it’s seldom about taxes.
You might be wrong there.
My family moved out of Chicago in 2015 for exactly that reason — taxes.
Our condo was just off Michigan Avenue facing east, with a view of the lake and the Bean. One day my husband said “We need to sell this condo now before property taxes go up and we lose money on it.”
I thought he was kidding. He wasn’t.
We bought a to-be-built house in Las Vegas in October 2014, moved into that house in September of 2015, and the condo closed in December of that year.
Our cost of living has gone down 40%. Our current property taxes are 1/3rd of what the condo’s taxes currently are. We have no tax on groceries and there’s no state income tax, plus I don’t have to sludge through heat like I did through the snow.
Do I miss Chicago? Yes.
Do I miss the taxes I had to pay? No.
I have world-class entertainment and restaurants 20 minutes away. Yes, it’s by car, not walking, but the traffic is nowhere near what Chicago traffic is like. It took me longer to get to the United Center (3 miles) than it does to T-Mobile Arena (9 miles).
Those with potentially taxable income will be taking a hard look at other places to retire, like we did.
Nanette Shahbaz, Las Vegas, Nevada
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Taxing electric cars
Saudi oil fields have been destroyed by drones and now Americans prepare to pay more at the pump for gasoline, a diminishing fossil fuel.
America’s reliance on imported crude oil is a national security risk that renders us dependent on countries with abhorrent regimes, and makes us militarily committed to maintaining their often brutal hegemony.
America can wean us from oil towards more fuel-efficient vehicles, hybrids and of course, electric cars. However, the Illinois Legislature believed that those who own electrics are somehow not paying their fair share in taxes to maintain roads and highways. So they decided to tax electric car owners for the fuel they are not buying.
Yet by not using gasoline, electrics actually increase the supply of fuel available, making it cheaper for those who do.
Those of us who don’t have children pay taxes to support public schools because we as a society have deemed public education a desirable common good. Similarly, we should consider moving away from oil and other fossil fuels while incentivizing viable alternatives, also a common good.
If those with less fuel-efficient vehicles have to pay more for continuing to use a diminishing resource when electrics and hybrids are available, then, so be it. We have already lost too many lives and material resources protecting foreign oil providers.
Granted, the Illinois tax on electric cars is far less than initially proposed, but that can change. It also might be applied to hybrids and other more more-efficient vehicles in the future.
This IS Illinois, remember?
Richard A. Kosinski, Niles
