NO SURPRISE HERE

The Tax Foundation’s TAX POLICY BLOG reports “New State Business Tax Climate Index Released Today” – today being October 26th.

“Today we released the 2011 State Business Tax Climate Index, which ranks from 1 (best) to 50 (worst) the tax systems of the 50 states. South Dakota's tax system is most welcoming to economic activity while New York's tax code ranks 50th as the least hospitable.”

The 10 state with the worst business tax climate on the first day of the 2011 fiscal yer (July 1, 2010) are –

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

Residents of the Garden State are certainly not surprised to find New Jersey the third worst. It is actually better than most of us would have thought!

The ten states that had the best tax climates were South Dakota, Alaska, Wyoming, Nevada, Florida, Montana, New Hampshire, Delaware, Utah and Indiana.

According to the report -

“The worst state tax codes tend to have:

• complex, multi-rate corporate and individual income taxes with above-average tax rates;
• above-average sales tax rates that don't exempt business-to-business purchases;
• complex, high-rate unemployment tax systems; and
• high property tax collections as a percentage of personal income.”

TAFN