The information provided here is for informational and educational purposes and does not necessarily reflect the opinion and/or policy position of the Georgia Municipal Association.
A recent report by the Tax Foundation puts Georgia's state/local tax burden squarely in the lower half of all states. For 2009, Georgia ranks 32nd with 9.1% of income paid in both state and local taxes. In 2008 Georgia came in 30th at 9.3%.
Nationally, individuals paid 9.8% of their income in state and local taxes, down from 9.9% in 2008. In 1977, the first year in which the Tax Foundation began reporting total state/local tax burdens, the national average was 10.4%.
Key Findings
- Taxpayers pay taxes not only to the state and local governments where they reside but also to out-of-state governments, both naturally and by design. Nationwide, over a quarter of all state and local taxes are collected from non-residents, and a true measure of the tax burden on the residents of any state must take this into account.
- During fiscal year 2009, in the midst of a national recession, both income and taxes shrank, but taxes fell faster than incomes. The result was that tax burdens decreased from 9.9 percent in 2008 to 9.8 percent in 2009.
- In 2009, the residents of New Jersey, New York and Connecticut paid the highest state-local tax burdens in the nation. They’re the only three states where taxpayers give up 12 percent or more of their income in state-local taxes, a full percentage point above the next highest state, Wisconsin.
- Alaskans, consistently the least taxed in the nation, again paid the least in 2009, just 6.3 percent. The next lowest state, over a full percentage point higher, is Nevada at 7.5 percent.
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The Tax Foundation is a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization that has monitored fiscal policy at the federal, state and local levels since 1937. |