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!
Welcome to the blogosphere's toolchest! Here, unlike other blogs dedicated to analyzing current events, we create easy-to-use, simple tools to do the math related to them so you can get in on the action too! If you would like to learn more about these tools, or if you would like to contribute ideas to develop for this blog, please e-mail us at:
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