50 states, 50 tax burdens: Here’s how Pa. ranked | The Numbers Racket

With tax season well underway, WalletHub, a personal finance website, decided to take a look at the “tax burden,” a ratio that measures the proportion of total personal income that residents pay toward state and local taxes. 

Wallethub then compared three types of taxes – property, income tax and sales and excise taxes across the 50 states to determine which states had the highest tax burden. 

Here’s how it shakes out:

10 states with the highest tax burden 

• New York, 12.28 percent tax burden
• Hawaii, 11.48 percent tax burden
• Vermont, 10.73 percent tax burden
• Maine, 10.57 percent tax burden
• Minnesota, 10.19 percent tax burden
• Connecticut, 9.99 percent tax burden
• New Jersey, 9.88 percent tax burden 
• Rhode Island, 9.84 percent tax burden
• Illinois, 9.62 percent tax burden
• Iowa, 9.53 percent tax burden

10 states with the lowest tax burden

• Alaska, 5.16 percent tax burden
• Delaware, 5.52 percent tax burden
• Tennessee, 6.18 percent tax burden
• Wyoming, 3.81 percent tax burden
• Florida, 6.82 percent tax burden
• New Hampshire, 6.85 percent tax burden
• Oklahoma, 6.94 percent tax burden
• Montana, 7.22 percent tax burden
• Alabama, 7.36 percent tax burden
• South Carolina, 7.48 percent tax burden

Wondering where Pennsylvania landed on the list? 

The Keystone state clocked in at number 25 with a tax burden of 8.53 percent. 

Pennsylvania currently has a property tax burden of 2.86 percent, an individual income tax burden of 2.51 percent and a total sales and excise tax burden of 3.16 percent. 

One state, two state, red state, blue state

An additional finding from the report was that red states, those who voted Republican in the 2016 election, tended to have a lower total tax burden than Blue states, which voted Democratic in the 2016 election, according to WalletHub.