Best & Worst States to be a Taxpayer

Economic mobility – that is, our ability to climb the proverbial ladder – has a strong correlation to where we live. Children from Seattle whose families are in the 25thpercentile in terms of income, for example, end up at roughly the same economic stature as kids from the median family in Atlanta.

Why? State and local taxes. At least that’s what a group of Harvard and Berkeley researchers collaborating on The Equality of Opportunity Project have to say. They “found a significant correlation between both measures of mobility and local tax rates.”

Want to know which states have the most and least burdensome tax rates?

WalletHub analyzed how state and local tax rates compare to the national median in the 50 states as well as the District of Columbia. We compared eight different types of taxation in order to determine: 1) Which states have the highest and lowest tax rates; 2) how those rates compare to the national median; 3) which states offer the best tax rates when adjusted by the cost-of-living index.

Our findings as well as information about the methodology we used to conduct this report can be found below.

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