Taxes done? Haven't even started to think about them yet? Wherever you stand on the subject, this is a welcome sight when it comes to the amount of money coming out of our pockets for taxes.

WalletHub does a yearly report on States with the Highest & Lowest Tax Rates and Montana places very high on the list with one of the lowest tax rates in the country. Actually, we're the 3rd lowest on the list. That's a win.

Our state and local tax rates are just over 7%. Make your way down the list and other states get as high as almost 15%.

How did they figure out the rankings? I'm glad you asked.

In order to identify the states with the highest and lowest tax rates, WalletHub compared the 50 states and the District of Columbia across four types of taxation:

  1. Real-Estate Tax: We first divided the “Median Real-Estate Tax Amount Paid” by the “Median Home Price” in each state. We then applied the resulting rates to a house worth $204,900, the median value for a home in the U.S., in order to obtain the dollar amount paid as real-estate tax per household.
  2. Vehicle Property Tax: We examined data for cities and counties collectively accounting for at least 50 percent of the state’s population and extrapolated this to the state level using weighted averages based on population size. For each state, we assumed all residents own the same car: a Toyota Camry LE four-door sedan, 2019’s highest-selling car, valued at $24,970, as of March 2020.
  3. Income Tax: We used the percentage of income (middle income rate) spent on income tax from WalletHub’s Best States to Be Rich or Poor from a Tax Perspective report. “Income” refers to the mean third quintile U.S. income amount of $60,602.
  4. Sales & Excise Tax: We used the percentage of income (middle income rate) spent on sales and excise taxes from WalletHub’s Best States to Be Rich or Poor from a Tax Perspective report. “Income” refers to the mean third quintile U.S. income amount of $60,602.

You can break down the numbers and details, see maps, rankings and more HERE.

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