Unexpectedly Intriguing!
29 July 2008

The Tax Foundation does a lot of stuff right, but presenting data well isn't necessarily one of those things.

Here's an example. The Tax Foundation has ranked individual U.S. states according to various aspects of their business tax climate. Pretty interesting stuff, especially if you are a prospective business owner considering your options on where you might consider setting up shop, and especially if you're not one of those people who can influence enough state politicians to specifically exempt their business from those various state taxes. Like the way the film industry does.

But, if you go by the Tax Foundation's online state business tax climate rankings, you can expect to do a lot of scrolling to find out how a particular type of tax for a given state ranks. For example, if your business is particularly affected by property taxes, you'll need to scroll down to find that New Mexico is the leading state in that category for 2008. But you'll also find that the state doesn't rank very well in other categories that may be important to you, so you may not be all that enchanted with the Enchantment State!

Repeat the exercise for the Number Two state, and then you can see where you might be in for more analysis than you really ought to have to do!

If you're making real world decisions based on these rankings, what you really need is for the data posted online to do more than just sit there. What you need to really start cooking is to make the data move. And that's where we've come in! We've taken the Tax Foundation's 2008 State Business Tax Climate rankings and put them in the dynamic table below. You can instantly sort the data according the various rankings by clicking the column headings: clicking once will rank the data from highest to lowest, clicking again will rank the data from lowest to highest.

And that's it! Our dynamic table is just sitting here waiting for you. Which state's business tax climate cuisine reigns supreme is entirely up to you!

2008 Tax Foundation State Tax Climate Rankings
State Overall Rank Corporate Tax Index Rank Individual Income Tax Index Rank Sales Tax Index Rank Unemployment Insurance Tax Index Rank Property Tax Index Rank
Alabama 21 21 19 25 12 12
Alaska 4 26 1 5 47 22
Arizona 25 24 26 45 3 10
Arkansas 35 35 29 37 18 16
California 47 40 50 42 15 5
Colorado 13 15 13 11 20 15
Connecticut 38 17 18 30 19 50
Delaware 9 48 32 2 7 7
Florida 5 14 1 19 2 18
Georgia 20 6 24 16 22 33
Hawaii 22 9 43 17 23 4
Idaho 31 19 34 34 44 2
Illinois 28 29 12 32 42 40
Indiana 12 22 10 12 10 17
Iowa 45 45 45 20 37 31
Kansas 33 38 25 24 9 38
Kentucky 36 39 31 10 48 20
Louisiana 32 18 28 47 8 21
Maine 41 43 38 13 40 41
Maryland 24 7 37 7 30 39
Massachusetts 34 46 15 8 49 45
Michigan 29 49 14 14 45 25
Minnesota 42 44 39 40 39 19
Mississippi 18 8 16 35 5 32
Missouri 15 10 23 22 4 9
Montana 6 16 20 3 21 8
Nebraska 43 33 33 46 17 42
Nevada 3 1 1 43 41 13
New Hampshire 7 50 9 1 38 36
New Jersey 49 41 49 44 24 49
New Mexico 23 36 17 41 13 1
New York 48 23 41 49 46 43
North Carolina 40 25 44 39 6 34
North Dakota 30 27 36 29 26 6
Ohio 46 37 48 36 11 44
Oklahoma 19 13 22 31 1 24
Oregon 10 20 35 4 32 14
Pennsylvania 27 42 11 26 25 47
Rhode Island 50 34 47 33 50 48
South Carolina 26 11 27 18 43 29
South Dakota 2 1 1 38 33 11
Tennessee 16 12 8 48 31 35
Texas 8 47 7 28 14 27
Utah 17 5 30 27 28 3
Vermont 44 32 46 15 16 46
Virginia 14 4 21 6 29 23
Washington 11 31 1 50 36 28
West Virginia 37 28 40 21 35 26
Wisconsin 39 30 42 23 27 37
Wyoming 1 1 1 9 34 30

* Yes, we're fans of Iron Chef!

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