Most Regressive Tax States

November 18th, 2009 · No Comments

The Institute on Taxation & Economic Policy has published a study titled Who Pays? A Distributional Analysis of the Tax Systems in All 50 States.

Matthew Gardner, the lead author of the study, says that most states’ tax systems are highly regressive:

In the coming months, lawmakers across the nation will be forced to make difficult decisions about budget-balancing tax change which makes it vital to understand who is hit hardest by state and local taxes right now.

The harsh reality is that most states require their poor and middle income taxpayers to pay the most taxes as a share of income.

Nationwide, Gardner’s study found that middle- and low-income non-elderly families pay much higher percentages of their income in state and local taxes than do the well-0ff.

Here are the 10 most regressive states: