Virginia has the 41st lowest tax burden in the country, according to the Tax Foundation, a nonprofit fiscal policy research group. The Foundation ranked the 50 states plus Washington, D.C., on the state/local tax burden as a percentage of pe capita income. Virginia’s average tax load of $4,056 amounted to 9.5 percent of income. (See the CNN article and chart.)
Virginians get to keep a lot more of their income than the residents of Maine, who pay 13.5 percent of their income to state/local government. Virginians also keep more of their money than their neighbors, North Carolina (10.5 percent, ranking 23; and Maryland, 10.7 percent, ranking 19.)
What the Tax Foundation doesn’t do, but someone should, is run a regression analysis to ascertain how much of the variation in the growth of per capita income is tied to the level of taxes in that state. As a mathematical dunce, I don’t know how to do that. But if someone could show me how, I’d run the numbers.
