LOS ANGELES — California ranked 48th out of 50 among the states for its business tax climate in an index released Oct. 28 by the nonpartisan Tax Foundation.
It achieved the same ranking in the foundation's 2013 index.
The state's ranking in individual tax categories is 34th for corporate tax structure, 50th for individual income tax structure, 42nd for sales tax structure, 14th for property tax structure and 14th for unemployment insurance tax structure.
The index, now in its 11th edition, measures how well structured each state's code is by analyzing over 100 tax variables in five different categories: corporate, individual income, sales, property and unemployment insurance taxes.
States are dinged in the index for overly complex, burdensome, and economically harmful tax codes, and rewarded for transparent and neutral tax codes that do not distort business decisions. A state's ranking can rise or fall significantly not only because of its own actions, but also because of changes or reforms made in other states.
The 10 highest rank states are 1) Wyoming, 2) South Dakota, 3) Nevada, 4) Alaska, 5) Florida 6) Montana, 7) New Hampshire, 8) Indiana, 9) Utah and 10) Texas.
The 10 lowest ranked were New Jersey, New York, California, Minnesota, Vermont, Rhode Island, Ohio, Wisconsin, Connecticut, and Iowa.
The goal of the index is to start a conversation between taxpayers and policymakers about how their states fare against the rest of the country, according to the Tax Foundation.
