Yo Charlotteans! Move to LA, Boston, NY or Atlanta for Lower Taxes? Yup.

Do Charlotteans pay more in combined taxes than the residents of Los Angeles, New York City, Boston, Atlanta, Los Angeles and Houston?

Prepare to confront the evidence. The Chief Financial Officer of the Government of the District of Columbia compiled a report of the tax burdens that property, auto, sales and income taxes put on a family of three making $50,000 to $150,000 in the largest city in each state.

The DC CFO shows his work (see page 9), listing exactly how he got there so you can see what Charlotteans pay relative to everyone else. It is eye opening. He inadvertently makes a convincing argument that when total tax burden is figured in, we pay some of the higher taxes in the nation.

Of the 51 cities in the report, Charlotte ranks the ninth highest in the nation in combined tax burden for families of three making $50,000, a crushing 10.6 percent of their income. That is roughly the same tax burden as residents of Chicago, Milwaukee and Los Angeles bear. And it is more than residents of Los Angeles, Boston, New York, Atlanta and just about every other desirable city in the nation.

Charlotte’s property taxes are about middle of the pack among all the cities. (Or they were in 2009, when the report was done. That was before the massive county property tax hike of 2010, which walloped just under half the county with double digit or near double digit tax increases using revaluation.) What kills us in the report is our combined state and local sales taxes, which take an eye-popping $1,286 out of the $50,000 income of that family of three.

Only three other cities out of the 51, Little Rock, Memphis and Phoenix paid more in combined state and local sales taxes.

The other killer that makes Charlotte so expensive for middle class families? State income taxes. Only families in six other cities, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Detroit, Louisville, Portland and Birmingham, paid more in state income tax.

Things are roughly the same for those up the income scale. A family of three making $100,000, pays 10.9 percent of its income in combined taxes, roughly on par with Detroit, Louisville and Milwaukee. Again, we pay more as a percentage of our income in taxes than those in Los Angeles (10.3%), Boston (9.1%), Chicago (9.5%) and Atlanta (9.8%).

What do we have to show for it? What did we get for this from state and local government? Was it worth it. I’ll let you decide.

Hat tip: To PunditHouse.com writer Mike Love for discovering this report.