Yipee! Oklahoma taxes are the lowest!

[Chicken Little]

quote:Originally posted by inteller

um, you can't use both state average income and nationwide average income to arrive at the same rankings.  they are either using one or the other, and no where do they say.

Sure you can.  The "tax burden" is the average tax rate for each state individually, Oklahoma is 27.8%.  If you aggregate the data for all 50 states, you can get an average tax rate for the nation (32.7%).

Some taxes, like property and sales tax, are generally flat rates across the entire population.  But I suspect that Conan is absolutely correct.  Connecticut has higher tax rates in large part because more residents, proportionally, are in higher income tax brackets.  You can tell when you look at the federal rate.  It varies from state to state, even though every American is taxed according to the same formula.  So, the only explanation remaining is that average incomes are higher, which throws more people into higher tax brackets.
 
I'm not really sure what that proves, other than poor people pay less taxes.

Oklahoma is not the poorest state, however. And we still have the lowest taxes.

[midtownnewbie]

I had this same question in the 3rd post of this topic...  Anyway, I believe the main reason Oklahoma has the lowest "tax burden" is due to the lower average income.  I'd like to see a chart that uses an average salary (same for each state) and then calculates what the tax burden would be per state.  That would actually mean something...

[Conan71]

I think that's the way to read it.  Miss. has a state and local burden of 10.5% vs. 9% for Oklahoma, yet total tax burden is only .3 points higher in Miss.  WV's total burden is a full 2 points higher than Ok, and their overall burden is 1.9 points higher.

[cannon_fodder]

midtownnewbie:

The numbers linked above are given as percentages, so they are already adjusted for our lower wages.  But you are correct, being in a lower tax bracket probably helps offset some federal taxes.