Location Matters: A Comparative Analysis of State Tax Costs on Business

Taxes represent a significant business cost for corporations; in fact, they often have a material impact on net operating margins. Business location decisions are influenced by the tax burdens in multiple candidate states. Rankings have been published by many research groups; however, all existing studies have shortcomings that limit their usefulness. For example most studies: 1. Entail comparisons of tax burdens per capita, business taxes as a percent of tax revenue, so these overly simplified comparisons do not accurately portray the relative tax burden that a real business would incur operating in one state versus another. 2. Attempted to assess the relative value of tax incentives available for different types of businesses, but these studies do not account for increased taxes for other businesses that may be supporting such incentives. 3. Attempted to define an overarching model tax structure that does not actually get at the most important business consideration: the actual tax burden in each state. In 2012 we developed the first apples-to-apples study, a landmark research project, that compared corporate tax burdens in all 50 states. Within days of its release, it had been downloaded over 200,000 times! We would like to do an updated version and distribute it widely to all state legislators as they seek to develop favorable conditions for businesses to thrive.