The Tax Foundation is out with its latest ranking of states based on business taxes:
Notably, New Mexico scores the lowest of any of its neighbors or any of the Rocky Mountain states. Over the years, New Mexico has consistently come in at number 38 in the Tax Foundation’s rankings despite having enacted some recent phased-in reductions in the State’s corporate income tax rate.
We are in the midst of those tax reductions and one hopes that as the rate drops to 5.9% in the next few years, we might get a slight boost in our business climate, but the consistently-low ranking shows that New Mexico has a great deal of work to do in the five areas measured by the index: Corporate, Personal Income, Sales, Unemployment, and Property taxation.
Interestingly Business Insider ranks the economics of the states. There does not seem to be a correlation between taxation and economic activity. Kansas is a good illustration of what happens when taxation is too low.
In Economic Activity
NY #3
MASS: #6
CA: #11
I believe you are looking at this report. My problem with the Business Insider report you cite is that I can’t find a single measuring stick for the rankings. There is no methodology whatsoever. Rankings can be useful. Tax Foundation has been doing its Business Tax Climate Index for years with basically the same measuring sticks (they don’t measure overall economic performance, regulations, or education systems in this report, just business taxes.