How High is Maine’s Level of Taxation?
Here at MHPC, we examine state and local tax collections as a percent of personal income as the benchmark for determing Maine’s level of taxation on the overall economy.
However, there are other methods for measuring the level of taxation. A recent report by the New England Public Policy Center at the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston examines several alternative methods.
For Maine, the critical insight from this report is that Maine has a high level of taxation no matter which way you “slice and dice” the data. Below I have listed the results for Maine (the rankings in this report includes DC so rankings go from 1 to 51).
Total state and local tax burden, FY 2004:
as a share of personal income–4th highest.
as a share of total taxable resources (CY 2003)–2nd highest.
as a share of gross state product–1st hightest.
Total state and lcoal own-source revenue burden, FY 2004:
as a share of personal income–8th highest.
as a share of taxable resources (CY 2003)–3rd highest.
as a share of gross state product–3rd highest.