Washington State Sales Tax Among Worst in Nation, Says Annual Report

The Tax Foundation has released it's annual State Business Tax Climate, and Washington state is a mixed bag of results.

Richard Borean of the Foundation tells Newstalk 870 that we rank 11th overall in business tax structure, which measures a variety of corporate and personal income and other tax structures.

But before we start celebrating,  many of the individual catagories are not so great.  Here's where we rank:

• 28th in corporate tax structure.
• property tax structure, 23rd.
• unemployment insurance tax structure, 19th
• (and here's the kicker) sales tax structure, 46th.

We did finish 6th best in individual income tax structure, but that's largely because we don't have a state income tax.   Among the most competitive states in all catagories include Wyoming at #1, South Dakota #2, Nevada #3, and Alaska at #4.

The least competitive states (from 50th on up) included New Jersey,  New York, California, Minnesota, and Vermont.   Our excessively high sales tax structure often results in residents shopping across the border in Oregon and even Idaho.

Oregon came in at #12, just behind Washington.