Anyone thinking of moving to another state might do well to examine Kiplinger's latest list of tax-friendly states. "This year's tax filing season was more nerve racking than most — it was the first time Americans had to deal with all the federal tax code changes made by the 2017 tax reform law," Kiplinger tax editor Rocky Mengle said in a statement. "The shakeup also makes it harder to tell how a person's state taxes line up with those of a similarly situated person in a neighboring state." To compile the 2019 list, Kiplinger editors used a formula to compare the tax burden in the 50 U.S. states and the District of Columbia. A state's tax friendliness was the sum of several taxes, including the typically most significant ones: income tax, property tax, sales tax and fuel tax. Six of the 10 tax-friendliest states had no state income tax, and two had no sales tax. Interestingly, two of these otherwise welcoming states had among the highest sales taxes in the country — in the 9% to 10% range — and two ranked among those with the highest gas taxes — in the 41 cents to 49 cents per gallon range. Kiplinger noted that its tax map was a companion project of its annual retiree tax map. Check out the gallery for Kiplinger's 10 tax-friendliest states in 2019. And if you or your clients are planning to move to escape high state taxes, beware: It's more complicated than it sounds. Related: |

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Michael S. Fischer

Michael S. Fischer is a longtime contributing writer for ThinkAdvisor. He previously reported on trade and intellectual property topics for the Economist Intelligence Unit and covered the hedge fund industry for MARHedge and Reuters News Service.