Larry Kurtz gets me reading this Wallet Hub ranking of the fairness of state tax systems. Wallet Hub asked 1,050 Americans to say what percentage (between 0 and 25) of income households in ten income brackets ought to pay in state and local taxes. Americans are progressive taxers: the ideal fair tax rates bubbling up from this survey rise from 2.5% for households making $5,000 a year to 16.36% for households making $2.5 million a year.
Wallet Hub then lined these survey figures up with actual state and local tax burdens calculated by the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy for each state's five income quintiles. From these calculations, Wallet Hub offers this tax fairness map:
Montana comes out with the state and local tax system imposing burdens closest to the ideal rates found in Wallet Hub's survey. South Dakota, ranking 36th nationwide, has the least fair tax system in the region:
| State | Tax Fairness Rank | Rank among Liberals | Rank among Conservatives |
| Montana | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| Minnesota | 7 | 6 | 11 |
| North Dakota | 15 | 16 | 10 |
| Nebraska | 23 | 24 | 26 |
| Iowa | 25 | 21 | 27 |
| Wyoming | 28 | 34 | 22 |
| South Dakota | 36 | 37 | 31 |
Wallet Hub breaks respondents by general ideology and finds conservatives and liberals give different ideal tax rates. Conservatives advocate higher tax rates than liberals for the lowest three income categories Wallet hub asked about and lower rates for the upper seven. But conservatives still favor consistently progressive tax rates. Conservatives and liberals rank Montana as the fairest state; conservatives and liberals alike place South Dakota in the bottom half for tax fairness.
http://interested-party.blogspot.com/2014/08/south-dakota-descent-no-accident.html
I'm very surprised at Washington. It's a rather liberal state, but apparently not in taxes.
It looks like Illinois and Arkansas are the worst. That's interesting too. A Democratic state and a Republican state. Hmmm. Arizona is fairly red too. Due to oldies?
Interesting. Verrry interesting.
Deb, if you ever have the chance to to to Arizona, you will immediately see that Arizona has some very big money.
I was impressed with all the North American Indian style of artwork along the the interstate. That would have not been possible without some big bucks coming in.
Some of it is due to people who are rich leaving there, plus there are a number of corporations headquarters there.
Part of the impetus for cannabis legalization in Washington was tax relief.
http://blogs.seattletimes.com/pot/2014/06/30/everything-you-want-to-know-about-legal-pot-in-washington/
sunday headline: Booze Causes Crime! rcj
what if the booze industry was made to responsibly market its product, treat addiction, and educate the public?
i have no dog in pot legalization. it is happening. a big industry is gearing up. tax relief is a worthy goal. avoidance of real costs of a product by an industry is par for the course in the usa. the environment suffers when the mining/energy industry is subsidized or can escape mitigation/reclamation. health suffers. profits are up.
will pot pay its way? unlikely in the short-term. when was prohibition? care to guess what booze has cost the economy? we are talking trillions.