RGF Releases New Mexico Tax Friendliness Report, Tax Calculator

New Mexico’s free market think tank, the Rio Grande Foundation, has made public on its website a revised and updated tool for families to calculate their property and gross receipts tax burdens in New Mexico’s 10 largest cities.

Using publicly-available property tax and gross receipts tax (GRT) data for each city with a population of 25,000 or more, the Rio Grande Foundation local tax burden calculator allows taxpayers to compare the two major taxes here in New Mexico that vary widely from place to place.

Rio Grande Foundation President Paul Gessing explained the importance of making this information available in an easy-to-use format, saying “GRT and property taxes are two of New Mexico’s three most important taxes levied on individuals (the other being income taxes). Since GRT and property tax rates vary significantly from place to place. We felt it is time to give taxpayers and entrepreneurs an idea how dramatically location decisions can impact what they pay the government.”

The calculator was made public using research on local tax burdens contained in the Rio Grande Foundation’s new paper “How Tax Friendly is Your City,” which compares city tax burdens and how tax rates have evolved over time. The study is available here.

For the average taxpayer, Albuquerque and Las Cruces have the heaviest tax burdens in New Mexico, while Hobbs and Carlsbad have the lowest burdens. These results are the same as those in the Foundation’s previous study on the topic which was released in August, 2007. Of course, using our tax burden calculator will produce results tailored to individual taxpayers and their families.

While legislators are going to be considering economically-harmful tax hikes in January in order to compensate for years of over-spending, local governments can survive this tough economic time by keeping tax rates low and becoming leaner. Hopefully this study sheds additional light on just how much of an impact local governments can have on creating taxpayer-friendly economic conditions.