Study shows which states have
business-friendly tax codes and which don't, how does yours
fare?
NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) - Wyoming tops the list of states
with the most business-friendly tax system, according to a
report released Monday.
South
Dakota, Alaska, Florida, Nevada, New Hampshire, Texas,
Delaware, Montana and Oregon round out the top 10, according
to the Tax Foundation's State Business Tax Climate Index.
Businesses face the least hospitable
business tax climate in New York, followed by New Jersey,
Rhode Island, Ohio, Vermont, Maine, Kentucky, Nebraska, Iowa
and Arkansas.
The Tax Foundation's index rewarded states
with more neutral tax codes that have low, flat tax rates
that apply to all businesses.
The Tax Foundation penalized states with
multi-rate corporate and individual income taxes,
above-average sales tax rates that don't exempt
business-to-business purchases, complex, high-rate
unemployment tax systems and high effective property tax
rates as well as a host of other wealth-based taxes.
The survey evaluated each state based on
five elements of its tax system: the principal business tax,
usually the corporate income tax; the individual income tax,
used by many small businesses; the sales or gross receipts
tax; the unemployment insurance tax; and the state's system
for taxing assets, principally the property tax.
Wyoming was most favorable, in part,
because the state has no corporate income or individual
income tax.
New York, on the other hand, has the
highest individual income tax in the country, in addition to
the one of the highest unemployment taxes.
The Tax Foundation, based in Washington,
D.C. is a nonpartisan, nonprofit policy research group that
advocates, among other things, tax simplification.