New York's Local, State Tax Burden Tops the Nation
ALBANY - New York State tops the country in taxes collected by the state and local governments, siphoning off $5,260 per person a year, a business group said yesterday.
New York's combined local and state tax burden was 53% above the national average and $339 more than the second most taxed state, Connecticut, Robert Ward of The Public Policy Institute of The Business Council of New York State, said. The study was based on 2004 U.S. Census data. In 2002, the combined tax burden was $4,684 a state resident.
Total state and local taxes collected in New York topped $100 billion for the first time in 2004. If state and local taxes were on par with the rest of the country, New Yorkers would have paid $34 billion less, Ward said. At $2,328 per person, Alabama had the lowest combined state and local tax burden.
"To have this kind of increase, it's disgraceful," the chief executive of the Rochester Business Alliance, Sandy Parker, said. "It certainly indicates we are spending way beyond our means. Until we start to control spending, we're going to continue to see an exodus of jobs and young people."
The only state that collected more in taxes was California, which took in $133.9 billion in 2004. The per-person tax burden in California was $1,524 less than in New York. California's population is about 36.1 million compared to New York's 19.2 million.
"This is one race you don't want to win," the director of the fiscally conservative Empire Center for New York State Policy, E.J. McMahon, said. "Unfortunately everything that has happened in Albany this year will make it worse."
