How Minnesota Stacks Up
A Visual Look at How Minnesota Taxes Compare to Other States
Most Minnesotans have a vague perception that Minnesota has higher-than-average taxes. However, most Minnesotans may not have a full perspective on the taxes they pay. The level of state tax Minnesotans pay is often described in generalities such as the need to have corporations and wealthy people to pay their “fair share”; or Minnesota taxes are “progressive;” or Minnesota taxes pay for the state’s “quality of life.” These vague descriptions of the Minnesota tax landscape do not, however, give individuals real perspective on how Minnesota taxes stack up with other states. This is, in part, because tax are complicated, they lack clarity, and hard to visualize.
The purpose of this project is to provide a visualization of how Minnesota stacks up with other states. We use maps produced by the Tax Foundation, a non-partisan, non-profit, independent tax policy organization. The Tax Foundation has produced a series of maps on all aspects of state taxes that, when brought together in a single collection, can be very insightful on how Minnesota stacks up against other states.
Please note that, generally, the darker the color on these maps the higher the taxes.
Lets start with the basics of income tax, sales tax and corporate income tax. One thing you might notice when looking at the maps showing the tax rates for these three tax types is that some states have higher income tax rates but lower sales tax rates and vice versa. The most common example of this is the neighboring states of Washington and Oregon. Washington has no individual income tax but a high sales tax rate while Oregon has no sales tax but higher income tax rates. In the next page you may notice that Minnesota has relatively high rates in all three tax types. So let's see how Minnesota stacks up in these three common tax types. . .