Mainers are some of the most heavily taxed citizens in the United States.
According to a recent study conducted by personal finance website WalletHub, Mainers currently bear the nation’s highest property tax burden and are responsible for the country’s fourth highest total tax burden.
Only residents of New York, Hawaii, and Vermont were calculated as paying a higher percentage of their personal income in taxes.
Included in WalletHub’s report are an evaluation of property taxes, individual income taxes, and sales and excise taxes. To determine the tax burden each state imposes on its residents, taxes owed in each category were calculated as a percentage of residents’ personal income.
At 4.86 percent, Mainers bear the highest property tax burden in the country, with a total of 10.74 percent of residents’ personal income going toward their overall tax burden.
Mainers fare better, however, in terms of their individual income tax burden, coming in twenty-first nationwide at 2.59 percent. Similarly, Maine ranks twenty-fourth with the 3.29 percent sales and excise tax burden imposed upon residents.
Nationwide, this WalletHub study found that state property tax burdens ranged from 4.86 percent in Maine down to 1.33 percent in Alabama.
California had the highest personal income tax burden at 4.87 percent, while several states were reported as having no income tax burden at all.
Excise and sales tax proportions ranged from .97 percent in New Hampshire to 5.46 percent in Washington state.
Click Here to Read the Full WalletHub Report
Earlier this year, it was revealed by WalletHub that Maine also has the country’s fifth highest effective vehicle tax rate, calculated at 2.40 percent.
According to that study, Virginia had the highest effective vehicle tax rate — 3.97 percent — meanwhile, 25 states were shown as imposing no vehicle-specific taxes.
[RELATED: Vehicle Owners in Maine Pay One of the Highest Tax Rates in the Country: WalletHub Study]
Over the course of the past few months, Maine lawmakers have considered a number of tax-related pieces of legislation, including now-defeated proposals to reduce the sales tax rate to 5 percent and to eliminate the state income tax.
This past week, members of the House and Senate cast their final votes in support of a bill repealing a nearly twenty-year-old cap on municipal property taxes that was designed to curb government spending and reduce Mainers’ tax burden.
Without this cap in place, cities and towns will now have license to levy unlimited property taxes without needing to seek citizen approval in advance.
In March, legislators on the Taxation Committee voted 7-1 to advance a proposal by Gov. Janet Mills (D) that would see Maine’s sales tax encompass streaming service subscriptions such as Netflix, Hulu, and Spotify.
Sharon Huntley — Director of Communications for the Department of Administrative and Financial Services — told the Maine Wire that while this is expected to bring in an additional $10 million worth of revenue, this would be “offset by the Governor’s proposed simplification of the sales tax exemption for nonprofits,” making the proposed changes “roughly revenue neutral.”
Currently, legislators are considering the governor’s proposed supplemental budget — of which the streaming tax is a part — alongside a series of recently released recommendations for spending more than $100 million in surplus tax revenue on a set of one-time initiatives.
<span class="dsq-postid" data-dsqidentifier="27109 https://www.themainewire.com/?p=27109">11 Comments
Socialism Ain’t Cheap-
What do we get for this? Every try to access the ocean in Maine? There are spots, just no parking.
How about public lands? Maine 800k acres, New Hampshire, 1.1million, Mass 310K acres.
Socialism Ain’t Cheap- But the politicians love it!!
I consider myself a middle of the road independent and I am also a local municipal elected official. That said this state has gone so blindly left that at this point I guess I’m now considered a conservative? What are we doing? I was born and raised in Maine, left for military service, returned in the recession years and ever since it seems the state I loved drifts farther and farther into chaos. If I wasn’t so entrenched here with young children, family, properties and small businesses I would flee like so many of those my age have.
Is it too much to ask our elected state leadership to treat the budget as if it was their own money and not endless. Is it too much to ask we simply legislate in a way that doesn’t constantly divide the population? It’s embarrassing to say I live here. The Maine I grew up in was a tough self sufficient state that while we may have had differences of opinions we were proud Mainers that came together and took care of each other regardless of D or R. Legislation was not crammed down the throats of the population…elected leaders listened to the constituents. The vast majority of the crap bills that have been passed in Augusta the last several years are extreme and not actually supported by the vast majority of people I discuss with….and I live in a predominantly Democrat community. Why do we as the electorate keep voting these extremist in? Voters need to pay attention to who they elect. Forget the D or R. Find out where they actually stand on policies.
Maine has always been a low income state so the math is going to put us at the top
Our leadership has held us back by holding back the development the thing which help the most–CHEAP ENERGY!
That is our prtection against having our homes taken over by sqatters , also knowed as ILLEGALS.
Still no action laws against squating by our leader ship here in Maine.
The taxes are placed against income. With Maine’s low wages due to low paying jobs no wonder we are at the top of the list.
This is what happens when democrats are in charge and not enough republicans to stop the insanity.
And now they have taken our votes away with the passage of NPV, so now we truly have taxation without representation
Again, this is what Maine voters want!!!!! Enjoy!!!
It’s a two part problem. We have high taxes and low incomes. Caused by a Legislature that spends too much, and drives off business with California inspired regulations.