New York and California Suck For Taxpayers, and For Freedom

New York and California are the
worst and second worst states in terms of tax burden, in what is
less than shocking news from the financial website,
WalletHub. The ranking tallies annual state and local
taxes, and puts the Golden State and the Empire State at the bottom
of the heap, with Wyoming and Alaska at the top as the two least
burdensome states for taxpapers in a listing that also includes the
District of Columbia (number 37, if you’re curious).

In and of itself, the ranking is helpful—but it’s also helpful
to cross-reference the tax ranking with separate rankings of
economic liberty and overall freedom to see how they correlate. The
result is a handy guide to places to live—or avoid like the
plague.

For its
tax rankings, WalletHub compared: real estate tax,
state income tax, local income tax, vehicle property tax, vehicle
sales tax, sales and use tax, fuel tax, alcohol tax, food tax, and
telecom tax.

The five top-ranked states (least burdensome) are:

1. Wyoming: $2,365
2. Alaska: $2,791
3. Nevada: $3,370
4. Florida: $3,648
5. South Dakota: $3,766

The five at the bottom are:

47. Illinois: $9,006
48. Connecticut: $9,099
49. Nebraska: $9,450
50. California: $9,509
51. New York: $9,718

Adjusting for cost of living has some effect—Illinois rises to
38, and Nebraska to 37—but those are the biggest adjustments at the
top and bottom, while D.C. and Hawaii plummet in the rankings. But
those are the biggest shifts.

What’s interesting, though, is how the WalletHub
rankings compare to the Mercatus Center’s state-by-state ratings of
personal and economic freedom. Mercatus scores each state on
over 200 issues
encompassing fiscal policy, regulatory policy, and personal
freedom. These include tax burden, property rights, marijuana
laws, gun restrictions, government spending, occupational
licensing, marriage freedom, and many more concerns.

Obviously, the final results of such rankings
depend to some extent on how you weight each issue, and there’s a
lot of subjectivity inherent in such comparisons. But using
Mercatus’s overall score, the top five states for freedom are:

1. North Dakota
2. South Dakota
3. Tenessee
4. New Hampshire
5. Oklahoma

And the bottom of the barrel are:

46. Rhode Island
47. Hawaii
48. New Jersey
49. California
50. New York

As with the WalletHub rankings, you can hover your
pointer over each state for scores.

My takeaway, for what it’s worth: Stay the hell out of New York
and California.