State and local taxes are soaring in Ohio, according to a May editorial in the Wall Street Journal.
“State-local taxes have risen considerably in Ohio over the past several years, reaching 11.3 percent of [state residents’] income,” according to an editorial in the May 4 issue of the Wall Street Journal, citing data from the Tax Foundation.
“That makes Ohio’s state-local tax burden the third highest in the nation. Only the state and local governments of New York and Maine take a larger fraction of their citizens’ income,” said Tax Foundation economist Scott Moody. “As recently as 2000, Ohio had just the 13th highest state-local tax burden. In 1997 Ohio ranked 20th, and in 1990 it ranked 30th.”
“State rankings rarely change this rapidly,” said Moody.
In 2004, the nation’s average state-local tax burden was 10.0 percent of residents’ income, with the highest being New York’s 12.9 percent and the lowest being Alaska’s 6.3 percent.
— J.S.
For more information …
Estimates of state-local tax burdens for every state can be found on the Tax Foundation Web site at http://www.taxfoundation.org/statefinance.html.
Comparisons of the 50 states’ tax burdens in every year since 1970 are available online at www.taxfoundation.org/statelocal.html.
