$110K Salary in Columbus vs. Nashville: Income Tax, Property Tax, Sales Tax, and the Real Total Tax Burden Gap

You're a homeowner in Columbus, Ohio, earning $110K. A recruiter in Nashville offers you the same $110K. There's no raise, but Tennessee has no wage income tax, so it feels like free money.

Will you take home more after you move? The answer is yes, but by much less than the tax difference suggests. Once you add a bigger mortgage and the cost of moving, the picture changes. Let's model it.

One rule first: everything below is a worked example with rounded assumptions I chose, not a quote from any dataset. Swap in your own figures. I've labeled each assumption so you can do that.

Why Most Tax Comparisons Go Wrong

There are two common mistakes. People compare only the income tax line, or they compare tax rates that don't measure the same thing.

The second mistake is easy to miss. A Tax Foundation piece on state "barrel" taxes shows a small version of it. Many states levy taxes on liquids per barrel, but some define a "barrel" differently than the standard measurement. Businesses paying in several states end up with compliance costs because the same word means different things. Personal taxes have the same problem. A "7% sales tax" or a "1.6% property tax" only means something when you know what it's applied to. It might be applied to your whole paycheck, your home's assessed value, or only the spending that's taxable.

So we'll compare dollars owed on the same household, not headline rates.

The Setup: One Household, Two Cities

These are my example assumptions. Adjust them for your own situation.

Single filer, $110K gross salary, same in both cities.
Columbus home: $400K, the house you own or would buy.
Nashville equivalent home: $480K. I'm assuming a comparable home costs about 20% more there. Check this against your own search, because it's the assumption that matters most.
Taxable spending: $30K a year on goods and services subject to sales tax. Rent, most health care, and many services often aren't taxed the same way.
Rates: approximate effective rates for a Columbus-area household (Ohio flat income tax plus Columbus city income tax, Franklin County sales tax, roughly 1.6% effective property tax) and a Nashville-area household (no wage income tax, roughly 9.25% combined sales tax, roughly 0.7% effective property tax). Rules change often, so confirm current rates with the state and county before deciding.

Income Tax: Ohio and Columbus vs. Tennessee

Ohio's state income tax, at an assumed flat rate near 2.75% above a low-income threshold, works out to roughly $2,300 on this salary. Columbus also has a city income tax of about 2.5%, which is $2,750 on $110K.

Tennessee has no tax on wages, so that side is $0.

Tax	Columbus	Nashville
State income tax (approx.)	$2,300	$0
City income tax (2.5%)	$2,750	$0
Income-based total	$5,050	$0

That's the headline number, and it's real. Everything after this is where people stop calculating.

If you'd like the reader-friendly version of this line item across many pairs, we did a similar breakdown in Cincinnati vs. Nashville on $105K.

Property Tax: The Lower Rate Isn't the Whole Story

At about 1.6% of a $400K home, Columbus property tax comes to $6,400.

Nashville's rate is much lower, at about 0.7%. But the equivalent home costs more, so we apply 0.7% to $480K and get $3,360.

The property tax gap is $3,040 in Nashville's favor. That's smaller than the rate difference alone suggests, because you're paying tax on a pricier house.

Sales Tax: Where Tennessee Claws Some Back

Tennessee makes up part of its revenue through sales tax. On $30K of taxable spending:

Columbus at 7.5%: $2,250
Nashville at 9.25%: $2,775

That's $525 more in Nashville. The exact figure depends on how much of your spending is groceries and services, which are taxed differently in different places. That's why the taxable-spending figure is an input you should replace with your own.

The Total Tax Burden Table

Category	Columbus	Nashville	Nashville advantage
Income taxes (state + city)	$5,050	$0	+$5,050
Property tax	$6,400	$3,360	+$3,040
Sales tax	$2,250	$2,775	−$525
Total tax burden	$13,700	$6,135	+$7,565

On taxes alone, Nashville looks like a $7,565-a-year win. If you stopped here, you'd call it a no-brainer.

This is the kind of side-by-side Vontari runs for you, so you don't have to rebuild the spreadsheet every time you consider a new city.

The Mortgage Offset Most Comparisons Skip

A $480K home costs more to finance than a $400K one. Assume 20% down and a 30-year fixed mortgage at 6.5% (an illustrative rate, so use a real quote):

Columbus loan: $320K, about $2,022 a month
Nashville loan: $384K, about $2,427 a month

That's roughly $405 more per month, or $4,860 a year, in principal and interest on the Nashville home. It's partly equity, since principal builds ownership, but it's still cash leaving your account each month.

Net annual advantage: $7,565 − $4,860 = about $2,705.

That's a real advantage, but it's about a third of the headline figure. If you're comparing on renter math instead, the picture changes again. A renter skips property tax entirely, though landlords pass it through in rent, and would compare rent gaps instead of mortgage gaps.

For a housing-first comparison in another pair of cities, see how Grand Rapids vs. Nashville plays out when a city income tax is in the mix.

What the Housing Headlines Mean for Your Model

Two of the news stories behind this post point at the same problem.

Realtor.com reported on a Sept. 17 poll finding that more than 96% of 113 mayors said residents are very or extremely concerned about housing affordability. That is a national pattern, and it's why housing has to sit at the center of any tax comparison.

Realtor.com also covered a meeting between President Trump and NYC Mayor Mamdani about a plan for an "entire new neighborhood" as housing costs soar in the city. Whatever your view of the plan, new-supply proposals take years to reach residents, so they don't change the math for a move you're deciding on today.

What matters for you is that low-tax states aren't automatically low-cost states. When a city becomes attractive because of its tax profile, housing demand tends to respond. Treat the housing price gap as a live number, not a constant.

The Cost of Actually Moving

Realtor.com's report on Americans moving less than ever, especially millennials, found that people are avoiding moves of all kinds this year. The study also says staying put costs some of them career and lifestyle upgrades. Both halves of that are worth taking seriously. Moving is expensive, and not moving has a cost too.

Here's the transition cost model for an owner, again with example numbers:

Transition cost	Estimate
Selling costs on a $400K home (about 6%)	$24,000
Moving company and travel	$6,000
Total	$30,000

Against a $2,705 annual net advantage, that's more than 11 years to break even on taxes and housing alone. Part of the selling cost is offset if you have equity to roll into the new home, but the cash outlay is real.

A renter's version looks different:

Transition cost	Estimate
Moving company and travel	$5,000
New deposits and overlap rent	$3,000
Total	$8,000

If a renter's net annual advantage were also about $2,700, that would be a break-even of roughly 3 years. The gap between 3 years and 11 years is the reason "should I move?" has no universal answer.

We walk through this same structure in Chicago to Nashville on $105K and Columbus to Denver on $115K.

What Changes if You're Retiring, Not Working

The SmartAsset story on retiring at 63 is a reminder that the tax picture changes with your income source. In that article, a couple who retire at 63 use 401(k) withdrawals as a bridge and delay Social Security to claim a higher monthly benefit later. The key idea is that a gap in income can be covered temporarily by tax-deferred accounts.

For a mover, this matters because the wage-tax advantage disappears. There's no paycheck to shelter. What's left is:

State tax on retirement withdrawals. Rules vary by state and by type of income, so check how your state treats 401(k) distributions.
Property and sales tax, which apply regardless of your work status.
Timing. If you'll be drawing down a 401(k) for a few years before Social Security starts, your taxable income in those years may be low, and that changes which state is cheaper for you.

A no-income-tax state is still helpful for a retiree, but property tax and sales tax do more of the work. Run the total, not just the income line.

Remote Worker Wrinkle: Your Employer May Reprice You

If your job stays the same and only your address changes, the salary might not stay put. Some employers adjust pay by location. A $110K salary in Columbus could become a lower figure in a different market, which changes the calculation more than any tax rate. Ask HR before you sign a lease.

How to Run This With Your Own Numbers

Here's the five-step version of what we did above:

Start with your real gross pay, not the round number.
Add income taxes for the state and city. Many people forget city or county income taxes.
Add property tax on the home you'd actually buy there, not your current home's value.
Add sales tax on your real taxable spending.
Add mortgage or rent difference, then subtract your one-time moving costs and divide by the annual gain for a break-even.

You can model this for your specific situation at Vontari, including the housing offset and transition costs that most calculators skip.

The Verdict for This Example

For a $110K single homeowner in this example, moving from Columbus to Nashville:

Pure tax savings: about $7,565 a year.
After a higher mortgage payment: about $2,705 a year.
Break-even on a home sale and move: over 11 years.
Break-even for a renter: closer to 3 years.

That doesn't make Nashville the better or worse city. It means the move makes financial sense for some situations, such as a renter or someone whose employer covers moving costs, and much less for others. Every input in this post is an assumption you can change. If the answer flips when you change a number, that's worth knowing before you list your house.

If you'd like your own version of this comparison, try Vontari. Enter your salary, your home, and your spending, and see the full tax and housing picture before you decide.

Sources

Trump and Mamdani Discuss Plan for ‘Entire New Neighborhood’ in NYC as Housing Costs Soar — Realtor.com News
Nearly All Mayors Say Residents Are Concerned About Housing Affordability — Realtor.com News
People Are Moving Less Than Ever—and It’s Costing Them Career and Lifestyle Upgrades — Realtor.com News
States’ Nonconformity with Federal Measurements Creates “Barrels” of Compliance Costs — Tax Foundation
We Retired at 63. Tapping Our 401(k) Before Social Security Changed Everything. — SmartAsset