In honor of Federal Income Tax Day today, our topic is income and how and by whom it is taxed.
Steve Hayward of Power Line posts the above chart. I believe it is accurate but slightly misleading. You need to heed the asterisks (*) after state abbreviations.
The states shown in light gray tax no income. WA only taxes capital gains. NH only taxes interest and dividends. Neither taxes regular or retirement income.
The states marked with a single asterisk have a flat tax which usually means income is taxed at a flat percentage regardless of how much you earn. In other words, they don't penalize high incomes. The rest - a majority - tax high earners at a higher rate per dollar earned, a so-called "progressive" tax rate.
The DrsC are domiciled in WY and winter in NV, neither state taxes income of any sort. Our little valley in western WY straddles the WY-ID border. ID taxes income, WY doesn't. Guess which side of the valley is more heavily populated,
You guessed right, of course, it's WY. Ironic that we should have a microcosm of the national trend to move away from higher tax jurisdictions to lower tax ones, right in our mountain valley where the winter's snows are finally beginning to melt.
