Wisconsin No Longer a Tax Hell...

...now we're more of a Tax Purgatory

For the first time in nearly a generation, Wisconsin has fallen out of the ranks of the top 10 highest-taxed states in the nation, two independent researchers have found.

Measured as a share of the money residents earn, Wisconsin's state and local taxes dropped to eleventh in the nation in 2006 — the latest year for which data are available — down from eighth in 2005 and sixth in 2004. The last time Wisconsin ranked out of the top 10 was in 1980.

No problem: Democrats figure on taking over the Assembly after this year's elections. They'll put a stop to that nonsense.

We'll be #1 in no time!

The story also points out the major problem with ranking states:

Didn't notice? That might be because Wisconsin's taxes actually rose slightly in the fiscal year ended in June 2006 but those of other states rose more quickly. That improved the state's ranking even as taxes stayed fairly steady, the two analyses of recently released U.S. Census Bureau data found.

Wisconsin state and local taxes were 12.3% of personal income in 2006, up from 12.1% the year before. If you add federal taxes in, it's over 33% - over one dollar out of every three earned. And that's just the taxes.

I've made this point before: if every other state doubled its taxes tomorrow, our ranking would plummet, but we'd still be paying over a dollar out of every three earned.

That's a lot of money, no matter where it puts us in the rankings.