Wallet Hub, a social media network for your wallet—it lets you search and compare financial products, share and consume financial advice/information, and set up a customized stream of financial news—recently published its 2014 list of Best & Worst States to be a Taxpayer. You’ll be thrilled to find out that New York State ranks high (in a bad, high-tax way) across the board.
We knew the tax situation was dire, especially here in Westchester, but Wallet Hub makes it clear the entire state is suffering under an unforgiving tax code: New York State ranks dead last, at 51 out of 51 (the list includes the District of Columbia), earning the title of the worst state for taxpayers.
New York State has: the second highest gas taxes at 67.97 cents per gallon; the third highest local income tax at 1.438 percent; the seventh highest state sales tax at a whopping 8.48 percent; and, finally, the 11th highest alcohol tax—also 8.48 percent.
For comparison, Missouri’s gas taxes are just 17.3 cents per gallon, the lowest in the nation, and four states (Delaware, Montana, New Hampshire, and Oregon) have 0 percent sales tax. Plus, there are seven states out there with no state income tax: Florida, Alaska, Nevada, South Dakota, Texas, Washington, and Wyoming.
So what does this mean to you? Well, other than your paycheck serving as a quasi ATM for the State (and don’t get us started on the county, but you can read our comprehensive feature on what it costs to live here by clicking here), high state and local taxes were found by Harvard and Berkeley researchers to be statistically correlated with low levels of economic mobility, and visa versa. So, poor children born in tax forgiving states like Washington have a better chance of rising into the middle class than those born in states like New York or California (California ranks 50th).
