Commentary

The tax burden on business

The Council on State Taxation just released a study on state and local taxation of businesses, with some interesting analysis. One clear lesson is that when the pressure is on to raise taxes, businesses better duck! –Businesses paid 65 percent of the entire increase in state and local taxes from FY2000 to FY2003. –In 5 states–South Carolina, Massachusetts, California, Wisconsin, Idaho, Michigan–100% of the tax increases during this decade were on businesses. –In fact, in 75% of the states, busineeses bore more than 50% tax increases. –During that period the big guns were out for business in Wyoming, where business taxes went up 20%! New Hampshire was close behind with a 17% hike. –Meanwhile in Alaska, business taxes were cut 10%, and Connecticut by 1%. But then, in Alaska, business taxes are 77% of state and local taxation, the highest proportion in the nation. Wyoming is second at 69% The study ranks states by business taxation levels in several different ways–very handy. The measure I like best–states ranked by business taxes per employee gives you Alaska with the highest per employee business tax burden, and Utah with the lowest.