Taxable Talk

It’s not all bad news in the Tax Foundation’s 2016 State Business Tax Climate Index for California. You could always be in New York or New Jersey. Still, it’s better to be elsewhere.

Two excerpts from the article note why states rank at the top of the list or at the bottom:

The absence of a major tax is a common factor among many of the top ten states. Property taxes and unemployment insurance taxes are levied in every state, but there are several states that do without one or more of the major taxes: the corporate income tax, the individual income tax, or the sales tax. Wyoming, Nevada, South Dakota, and Texas have no corporate or individual income tax (though Nevada and Texas both impose gross receipts taxes); Alaska has no individual income or state-level sales tax; Florida has no individual income tax; and New Hampshire and Montana have no sales tax…

The states in the bottom 10 tend to have a number of afflictions in common: complex, non-neutral taxes with comparatively high rates. New Jersey, for example, is hampered by some of the highest property tax burdens in the country, is one of just two states to levy both an inheritance tax and an estate tax, and maintains some of the worst-structured individual income taxes in the country.

So who are the winners and the losers? Here are the top ten states:

1. Wyoming
2. South Dakota
3. Alaska
4. Florida
5. Nevada
6. Montana
7. New Hampshire
8. Indiana
9. Utah
10. Texas

Here are the bottom ten states:

41. Maryland
42. Ohio
43. Wisconsin
44. Connecticut
45. Rhode Island
46. Vermont
47. Minnesota
48. California
49. New York
50. New Jersey

My home state, Nevada, does very well (ranking fifth overall). It ranks first in individual income tax (there isn’t one), fourth in corporate tax (there is no a gross receipts tax on businesses, but only large businesses and the tax rate is low), seventh in property tax, but 39th in sales tax and 42nd in unemployment insurance tax.

Note that it is possible to have every major tax and still rank highly (Indiana and Utah manage that) if the taxes are broad with low rates. Of course, you can be like New Jersey, New York, and California: have broad taxes at high rates. If you do that, you end up on the bottom.

I should point out that it is possible that New York will rise in the rankings. As the Tax Foundation noted, New York enacted corporate tax reform which should improve its standing. Meanwhile, California is apparently considering more and higher taxes for the future. That, combined with the regulatory environment in the Bronze Golden State, should give legislators pause…but probably won’t.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, November 17th, 2015 at 7:48 pm and is filed under California, Nevada, New Jersey, New York. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.