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Tax season underway: What you need to know
Wealth strategist and tax expert David Ragland joins LiveNOW's Lexie Petrovic to outline what Americans need to know when filing their taxes as tax season began on Monday.
Tax Day on April 15 is the annual deadline for filing your income tax returns, and it’s a significant event for millions of individuals and businesses across the United States.
Uncle Sam takes his cut of our past year’s earnings every April, and since the tax code can be complicated, it’s hard for the average person to tell how they will be impacted.
Unlike tax rates, which vary widely based on an individual’s circumstances, a "tax burden" measures the proportion of total personal income that residents pay toward state and local taxes.
It isn’t uniform across the U.S. either.; what you owe can vary significantly based on the state that you live in.
Current federal tax forms. (Credit: Scott Olson/Getty Images)
To determine the residents with the biggest tax burdens, WalletHub, a personal finance website, compared the 50 states based on the cost of three types of taxes — property taxes, individual income taxes, and sales and excise taxes — as a share of total personal income in the state.
Here’s a look at the states with the highest and lowest tax burdens, and which taxpayers pay the least and most.
States with highest taxes, lowest tax burdens
Highest tax burdens
- New York - 12.02%
- Hawaii - 11.80%
- Vermont - 11.12%
- Maine - 10.74%
- California - 10.40%
- Connecticut - 10.08%
- Minnesota - 9.95%
- Illinois - 9.67%
- New Jersey - 9.47%
- Rhode Island - 9.38%
Lowest tax burdens
- Alaska - 4.93%
- New Hampshire - 5.63%
- Wyoming - 5.70%
- Florida - 6.05%
- Tennessee - 6.07%
- Delaware - 6.43%
- South Dakota - 6.44%
- North Dakota - 6.80%
- Oklahoma - 7.04%
- Nevada - 7.37%
States with no personal income tax
Some states have decided to do away with personal income tax altogether, giving residents the advantage of keeping more of their earned income.
These include:
- Alaska
- Florida
- Nevada
- South Dakota
- Texas
- Washington
- Wyoming
Keep in mind, the findings reveal that low income taxes don’t always mean low taxes as a whole.
For example, while the state of Washington’s citizens don’t pay income tax, they still end up spending over 8% of their annual income on sales and excise taxes.
Meanwhile, Texas residents also don’t pay income tax, but they spend 1.63% of their income on real estate taxes – one of the highest rates in the country.
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Ask The Expert: Tips for Filing Taxes
The tax filing deadline is just a couple days away. LiveNOW from FOX's Andrew Craft spoke with Marketwatch's Andrew Keshner for tips if you're filing last minute.
WalletHub found that New York had the highest overall tax burden, while Alaska had the lowest.
Meanwhile, Maine has the highest property tax burden, while Alabama has the lowest. California has the highest individual income tax burden.
Red states had a lower tax burden than blue states, on average.
What time do taxes need to be filed by
Tax day is April 15 and marks the last day to submit a request for an income tax extension, giving filers six more months to file their tax return.
Tax returns are due by 11:59 p.m., in your time zone, with some exceptions.
RELATED: Still need to pay taxes? Here are some last-minute tips
Taxpayers in Massachusetts and Maine have until April 17 to file and pay taxes because of the Patriots' Day and Emancipation Day holidays.
In addition, there may be extensions in some areas impacted by severe weather events. There are extensions for certain active-duty military members and citizens living abroad.
This story was reported from Los Angeles.