Just wondering: would you know the total tax and fees for such a salary. (there is probably federal tax etc). I am not to familiar with the US system.

There are various calculators you can find on Google. This is the one I used to get the numbers above: https://smartasset.com/taxes/california-tax-calculator#rSyRW...

Thanks. Medical insurance paid by company? What is a normal amount people put in a retirement plan? Is that contribution tax deductible? If it is say like 20%, it seems easily 50% of your income are acounted for.

401ks are pretax, so you should max those out. Health premiums are fairly reasonable, I paid about $300/month when I was living in LA, that was just the employee side, the employee side was a lot more probably.

None of that is unique to California. Your overall tax burden in California will be about one percent higher than Texas, according to https://wallethub.com/edu/states-with-highest-lowest-tax-bur..., though Californians typically lay spot more taxes because they make more money.

I just wanted to reply to say thank you for that WalletHub link. Given the growing possibility my company will accept remote work, I'm more seriously looking into moving in order to minimize my CA induced tax burden, and I've always simply assumed that I was simply looking for places with no income tax. WalletHub's methodology that also includes property and sales taxes, AND presents them each as a share of income, makes a lot of sense, and has definitely changed my thought process significantly! Thank you!

401ks are pretax money.

In general, people put ~5% of their (pretax) money into 401ks because, on average, companies will match that ~5%, effectively doubling your retirement savings instantly.

A common thing to utilize after that is a ROTH IRA, which is paid with after tax money, but the money grows tax free. The max ROTH IRA contribution per year is $6k, $12k if you're married.

Is the matching by the company also tax exempt?

It is tax-deferred, meaning you’ll pay tax on it later.

Tax-exempt would be never paying tax on it.

Yes it is

Thanks for this comment. I must have misread at what income the 9% rate kicks in. Is your friend an assistant prof, or does he/she have tenure?

It is 9.3% on income after $58k until $300k (single filing), but the first $58k is taxed at a lower rate, so you never get anywhere near an effective 9% rate. That’s just the way marginal rates work, Republicans throw out the top tax rate to argue that California is high taxed, but it turns out the taxes are very progressive (the first $100k is taxed very lightly).

He should have tenure. The UC system doesn’t pay that great, and there is also a lot of competition for faculty positions. Your best bet is to make some money on the side , legally of course, advising some company, but even that has a lot of restrictions.

I mean yeah, it’s marginal, but $45k-58k is taxed at 8%, then $33k-$46k is taxed at 6%.

Those aren’t low rates compared to other states, especially considering the COL.

They're not low, certainly, but they aren't extravagant, and they are offset by low property taxes (California 1%, Texas 1.80%, New Hampshire 2.18%), even more so once you've been in a place some years, and are benefiting from Prop 13.

Uh, no, 1% isn’t not a low tax rate when’s starter single family home in the Bay Area is $1M.

Californian valuations are fixed in their increases by prop 13, so over time your property taxes will go down, restive to inflation at least.

Sure, if housing prices increase at the same rate as the last 30 years there is a huge benefit, but regardless if you buy today you’ll have a massive property tax bill.

Yes, and it really isn’t fair, but prop 13 wasn’t about fairness.

You have to look at what your effective rate is. If you make $100k, you’ll pay 6% effective.

Clearly the state just wants to make sure that any prospective college professors can distinguish marginal tax rate from effective tax rate. :P