Taxable Talk

The 18th annual Small Business Policy Index was released almost three weeks ago by the Small Business & Entrepreneurship Council. Congratulations are in order for my home state of Nevada; the Silver State ranked second (behind only South Dakota). Bringing up the rear are the usual suspects.

Here are the top ten states:

1. South Dakota
2. Nevada
3. Texas
4. Wyoming
5. Florida
6. Washington
7. Alabama
8. Indiana
9. Ohio
10. Utah

And the bottom ten:

41. Connecticut
42. Oregon
43. Iowa
44. Maine
45. Minnesota
46. Hawaii
47. New York
48. Vermont
49. New Jersey
50. California

The rankings include a variety of factors, and the Bronze Golden state ranked last in quite a few: personal income tax rates, individual capital gains tax rates, individual dividends and interest tax rates, and state gas taxes. California also has an added S-Corporation tax rate, and both an individual and corporate Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT). California ended up with a relative ranking of 113.637; the top state, South Dakota, has a ranking of 34.627. Yes, you’d have to deal with the South Dakota winters, but climate isn’t everything.

As noted in the introduction,

Of the 47 measures included in the 2013 edition of the Index, 22 are taxes or tax related, 14 relate to regulations, five deal with government spending and debt issues, with the rest gauging the effectiveness of various important government undertakings.

It is a comprehensive review. The states that did the best are those with low tax rates, low regulations, and lower spending and government debt.

The conclusion of the report is really presented in the introduction:

Political fantasies involving higher taxes, increased regulation, and much higher levels of government spending and debt, as we have learned at the federal level over the past nearly seven years, do not serve our economy well. The same goes, of course, at the state and local levels.

This entry was posted on Sunday, December 29th, 2013 at 8:13 pm and is filed under California, Nevada, South Dakota. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.