When you received your tax return, did insuppressible tears gush from your face? Were you wracked with visions of halo-crowned $20 bills floating up to the Big Bank Of America In The Sky, while you convulsed violently on the floor? Where was that cyanide pill you assumed was included somewhere inside the TurboTax box? If any of these thoughts and feelings seem familiar, you are not alone—for the seventh year straight, New York residents were number 1 when it came to shouldering the nation's tax burden. WE'RE NUMBER ONE, WE DID IT NEW YORK! ::vomits, cries::
The data, which was compiled by the Tax Foundation and released in a report on Wednesday, is actually from 2011. But considering we've been going strong tax-wise for nearly a decade now, it's probably safe to assume we're still on top ("thanks de Blasio"). That year, New Yorkers handed 12.6 percent of their incomes over to the Tax Man in state and local taxes, yielding an average of $6,622 per person; the state ended up paying $68 billion in taxes in total.
Not that our neighbors in New Jersey did much better, cutting a 12.3 percent chunk out of their incomes. In Connecticut, state taxes carved out 11.9 percent of 2011's paychecks, and over yonder on the West Coast, Californians paid 11.4 percent in taxes.
Places you may want to consider moving, lest you start stealing other people's children so you can deduct them: Alaskans only fork over 7 percent of their total incomes to the T-Man, in South Dakota taxes amount to 7.1 percent of incomes, and Wyoming has the lowest state and local tax burden, with only 6.9 percent of income going to taxes. Other things in Wyoming include buffalo, monstrous tumbleweeds and this giant statue of the Virgin Mary.
If you have not yet filed your taxes, please see our handy TurboTax How-To guide, and remember that it will all ("all", refers to The Earth and Mankind) be over soon.
