Almost everyone is subject to the same federal tax structure, but states taxes vary considerably. Where you choose to live plays a significant role on how a state will collect taxes from you; you may be required to pay varying degrees of property tax, sales tax, license tax, income tax, gift tax, etc. Here, I’ve shown the ratio of two of the larger state tax expenses: individual income tax to sales and gross receipts tax. Though gross receipts taxes are levied on companies (sellers of goods and services), the cost is often passed on to individual consumers through increased prices.

Some people circumvent high state taxes by living in a state with low income tax and high sales tax, but driving across state lines to shop in a state with low sales tax. In Portland, OR, we experience shopping visitors (mostly from Vancouver, WA), because we are one of five states with no standard statewide sales tax. The other states with no standard sales tax are Delaware, New Hampshire, Alaska, and Montana. These states may have local taxes that apply only in certain cities/counties, or gross receipts taxes.

These data are based on total individual income and sales and gross receipts taxes collected by each state in fiscal year 2012; state populations were used to derive per capita values in the scatter plot. As you can see from the map, most states (37 of 50) have more sales tax than income tax; the average ratio across the USA (unweighted) is 0.75. Seven states have zero individual income tax (AK, FL, TX, SD, NV, WY, and WA), and two (NH and TN) have extremely low income tax. With their lack of statewide sales tax, OR and DE have the highest ratios (4.16 and 2.67, respectively). No other state has a ratio above two. The per capita expenses shown on the graph highlight which states charge more income and sales taxes overall. CT ($3,913), HI ($3,679), MN ($3,184), and NY ($3,150) are the four states that have the highest totals between the two categories. AK ($340) and NH ($724) have by far the lowest totals. The US average is $2,091.

Data source: http://www.census.gov/govs/statetax/