THE TAX FOUNDATION
Beast of burden: Tax burdens across the country in 2020, 2021, and 2022 are all higher than in any other year since 1978.
Tax burdens rose across the country as pandemic-era economic changes caused taxable income, activities, and property values to rise faster than net national product.
Beyond state borders: When measuring the burden imposed on a given state’s residents by all state and local taxes, you can't look exclusively to collections figures for the governments located within state borders.
A significant amount of tax shifting takes place across state lines, and this shifting is not uniform. This shifting should not be ignored when attempting to understand the burden faced by taxpayers within a state.
The results are in: Tax competition between states can often make dramatic differences in the level of taxation between similar, nearby states unsustainable in the long run.
States with the highest state-local tax burdens in calendar year 2022:
1. New York (15.9 percent)
2. Connecticut (15.4 percent)
3. Hawaii (14.1 percent)
4. Vermont (13.6 percent)
5. California (13.5 percent)
6. New Jersey (13.2 percent)
7. Illinois (12.9 percent)
8. Virginia (12.5 percent)
9. Delaware (12.4 percent)
10. Maine (12.4 percent)
States with the lowest state-local tax burdens in calendar year 2022:
50. Alaska (4.6 percent)
49. Wyoming (7.5 percent)
48. Tennessee (7.6 percent)
47. South Dakota (8.4 percent)
46. Michigan (8.6 percent)
45. Texas (8.6 percent)
44. North Dakota (8.8 percent)
43. Georgia (8.9 percent)
42. South Carolina (8.9 percent)
41. Oklahoma (9.0 percent)