The report found that Illinois had a tax burden of about 9.8 percent in 2012, the most recent year for which data was available. That's higher than the state's 9.1 percent tax burden that Illinois registered in 2011. The increase is due to a rise in the individual business income tax rates and the corporate income tax rate, according to Jason Horwitz, one of the authors of the study.



"People tend to react and discuss the visible taxes – for example income taxes – that have gone up quite a bit recently and discuss whether or not we should let it expire," Horwitz said. "The fact is, income taxes, at least for businesses, it's just a small portion of the [total] taxes they face. Just because there might be a high profile tax change it doesn't mean that it will have a big impact on the rankings as we derive them here."



The state tax burdens were calculated by dividing the estimated amount of state and local tax paid directly by businesses in each state by a measure of the business operating margin.



Oregon had the lowest tax burden at 5.1 percent, and collected 6 million in taxes from businesses in 2012. Alaska had the highest, with a 24.4 percent tax burden, and collected $7.8 billion in business-related taxes in 2012.



U.S. businesses, according to the study paid $613 billion in state and local taxes in 2012, the last year for which data was available. The report also found that property taxes and general sales taxes make up about 59 percent - the largest share of state and local taxes paid by businesses that year.