News, links and information about real estate in Florida
by Liz Hughes
A new report ranks Florida as one of the best states in the country when it comes to taxes.
The index is designed to help business leaders, taxpayers and government officials gauge how their states’ tax systems compare to others in terms of how they are structured and can be improved.
The Tax Foundation’s 2022 State Business Tax Climate Index ranked the Sunshine State fourth on its list. Wyoming was the best state in the nation, while New Jersey was the worst.
States were compared on more than 120 variables in the five major areas of taxation. Each state’s overall ranking was based on how it ranked in several categories: Corporate tax, individual income tax, sales tax, property tax and unemployment insurance tax.
Florida was No. 2 for unemployment insurance taxes, seventh for corporate taxes, 12th for sales taxes and No. 21 for property taxes. The state’s lack of individual income tax helped its overall score.
States in the top 10 of the index shared a common factor — the absence of a major tax. While property and unemployment insurance taxes are collected in all states, several don’t have a corporate income tax, individual income tax or sales tax, and some only have one of the latter three taxes.
Nevada, South Dakota and Wyoming, which ranked seventh, second and first respectively, don’t have corporate or individual income taxes. No. 3 ranked Alaska doesn’t have an individual income tax or a state-level sales tax, while No. 4 ranked Florida and No. 8 ranked Tennessee don’t have an individual income tax. Both New Hampshire, which ranked sixth, and Montana, which ranked fifth, do not have a sales tax.
