Taxable Talk

Jason Dinesen tweeted tonight about the insurance regulation report card issued by RStreet.org. On Monday, the Tax Foundation posted about the Council on State Taxation (COST) grading states on taxpayer administration. I thought it would be interesting to compare the top states and bottom states in each.

First, the top ten:

Now, the bottom ten:

One conclusion that I draw is that a state appearing on both bottom ten lists is a state with a bad regulatory environment. California, Florida, North Dakota, and Washington share that dubious distinction. Indeed, California ranks the worst for tax administration and is 46th for insurance administration. It’s no wonder that business executives believe that California’s regulatory climate has miles to go before it becomes average (in ranking).

Only one state makes the top ten in both lists: Virginia. A state with a favorable regulatory climate will attract business, and that’s something that Virginia is doing.

Finally, I do need to point out that states that rate poorly in tax administration but do not have a personal income tax lead to some interesting scores on the COST list. The states without a corporate tax return (such as Nevada) should have a negative score in the Corporate Return Filing Burden column imho–these are states where life is easy for tax administrators.

My thanks to the Tax Foundation, RStreet.org for publishing these charts and to Jason Dinesen for pointing out the insurance information.