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Home is where the horses are, at least in this affluent community 45 minutes from Los Angeles that boasts 100 miles of horse trails and three state-of-the-art equestrian arenas. In Yorba Linda, 2012 has been a celebration-filled year, with the graduation of the first class of students from its new high school and events related to Richard Nixon's birth here 100 years ago. The living may be easy, but it isn't cheap: Homes cost upwards of half-a-million dollars. --L.G.
Notes:
*County data
Due to erroneous job, cost-of-living, and test score stats for a small number of places, this city's rank changed slightly from an earlier version.
Details.
Due to an error by our data provider, an earlier version listed incorrect stats for this city's number of colleges.
(I) Income tax notes:
17 states have statutory provision for automatically adjusting to the rate of inflation the dollar values of the income tax brackets, standard deductions, and/or personal exemptions. Massachusetts, Michigan, and Nebraska index the personal exemption only. Oregon does not index the income brackets for $125,000 and over. Because the inflation adjustments for 2012 are not yet available in some cases, the table may report the 2011 amounts. For joint returns, taxes are twice the tax on half the couple’s income. The personal exemption takes the form of a tax credit instead of a deduction. California imposes an additional 1% tax on taxable income over $1 million, making the maximum rate 10.3% over $1 million.
(II) Sales tax notes:
California (1%) and Virginia (1%) levy mandatory, statewide add-on sales taxes at the local level; these are included in their state sales tax rates.
Using statistics from data services company Onboard Informatics, we crunched the numbers in order to zero in on America's best small cities for families. (Last year, we looked at small towns, with populations between 8,500 and 50,000.)
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