Staff Report
Published April 3, 2014

South Carolina residents have the 9th lowest state-local tax burden in the country, according to a report released today from the Tax Foundation, a nonpartisan tax policy think tank in Washington.

The Annual State-Local Tax Burdens shows that taxpayers in South Carolina paid 8.3% of their collective incomes in state and local taxes in 2011. Americans paid 9.8% of their income on these taxes on average in 2011.

Residents of Wyoming paid the lowest percentage of income in 2011 at just 6.9%, replacing Alaska as the lowest-burdened state in the nation. Alaska had been the least-taxed state for multiple decades, the report said.

The next lowest-taxed states were South Dakota, Texas and Louisiana.

New York ranked the highest in the country with residents paying 12.6% of their collective incomes in state and local taxes in 2011. The next highest-taxed states were New Jersey and Connecticut at 12.3% and 11.9%, respectively.

Driven by the growth of income in all states during fiscal year 2011, the study found that state-local tax burdens as a share of incomes decreased.

“States have different tax burdens, just as they have different levels of services. For Americans to make informed judgments about benefits and costs of state-local government, the costs need to be known.” Tax Foundation economist Liz Malm said in a statement. “This annual estimate of how much residents pay in state-local taxes helps inform that discussion.”