Maine has been found to have the fourth highest total tax burden in the country, according to a new study published by personal finance website WalletHub.
To determine residents’ tax burden, WalletHub calculated property, income, and sales and excises taxes as a share of personal income.
The data used for these rankings were collected on March 4 of this year from the Tax Policy Center.
Based on these calculations, Mainers bear a 10.64 percent overall tax burden, annually paying 4.4 percent of their income in property taxes, 3.02 percent in income taxes, and 3.48 percent in sales and excise taxes.
The only states with a higher total tax burden than Maine are California (11 percent), Vermont (11.53 percent), New York (13.56 percent), and Hawaii (13.92 percent).
Maine’s 4.4 percent property tax burden ranked fifth nationwide, representing a slight improvement over 2024 when property taxes accounted for 4.86 percent of personal income.
This apparently positive change, however, does not necessarily mean that Mainers are any less burdened by property taxes than they were in previous years.
According to the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, per capita personal income in Maine increased from $64,922 in 2023 to $68,129 in 2024, continuing a longtime trend.
Given the substantial property tax increases seen by many Mainers this past year, the somewhat lower tax burden reported by WalletHub is not necessarily reflective of everyone’s experience.
[RELATED: Sticker Shock — Maine Homeowners Burdened by Property Tax Hikes Following Recent Revaluations]
Although Maine fares comparatively better with respect to both income and sales and excise taxes, the state still falls in the bottom half of the roster for both metrics.
Maine ranked sixteenth for its 3.02 percent income tax burden and twenty-third for its 3.48 percent sales and excise tax burden.
Nationwide, WalletHub found that states that blue states had a higher average total tax burden than red states, with an average ranking of 14.74 compared to 32.10.
States were classified as either red or blue based on whether the majority of residents supported former Vice President Kamala Harris (D) or President Donald Trump (R) during the most recent presidential election.
Click Here to Read the Full WalletHub Study
<span class="dsq-postid" data-dsqidentifier="37395 https://www.themainewire.com/?p=37395">19 Comments
Taxationland!
Wait until we have to fund the new budget, then we will move up a couple of spots.
Wow! 5th highest tax burden and will certainly get worse with all the dems new taxes! Let’s give out more free money to the speakers sister! C’mon man!
Maine is shooting to be #1 highest taxed because of Mills, Maine Principal Association, and Greely High School letting biological males compete and kick the crap out of biological women in all athletic endeavors, and lose federal funding. Fight Janet Fight!!!! You can do it!!!!
Someone has to pay the lavish salaries of the hypocritic government parasites.
Maine, where the peasants always pay. One way or the other.
” The way life should be “… according to Democrats.
And what do I get for this but lousy roads , intermittent electricity , no more than a handful of local trades people , and neighbors who wish Kamala had won ?
When the Dept of Justice drops the boom on the “ boys can beat the girls “ crowd it’s only going to get worse .
One thing to pay a high tax burden, another to get less than ZERO for what is paid
Mainer’s we have to be #1 work harder so we can pay more taxes for the free loaders.
Money for nothing, chicks for free…
Obviously. “Thank god taxes are only for the little people*”.
*Democratic party
But we can smoke all the Chinese pot and drink all these local micro brews .
Keep us dumbed down and contented .
Just make sure the queer boys can win all the girls trophies .
Maine is getting really F@#ked up !
Maine doesn’t have a tax problem, they tax everyone and everything!
Maine has a spending problem!
But Maine has a bigger problem.
Maine is infested with Democrats, and Democrats are spending junkies!
Until Maine voters eradicate the Democrats from Augusta, their pet illegals and fake asylum seekers, nothing will change.
My family has been in Maine long before there was Maine. With sadness, I’ll be the first in my family to leave the state as soon as possible. Maine has failed me and my family.
It’s actually FAR worse!
According to the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, per capita personal income in Maine increased from $64,922 in 2023 to $68,129 in 2024, continuing a longtime trend.
No — Lets use the FED figures for 2023 — per capita of $64,922 and FAMILY of $75,740.
The difference between one person working and two working is ONLY $10,818?
This is where we get into the difference between Median (which I know the $75,740 is) and Mean which I suspect the $69,129 is. Median is half above and half below, a dividing line similar to the strip of grass on the interstate. Mean is the traditional add them all up and divide by the number.
An example: A 50 year old kindergarten teacher and ten 5-year-olds.
Rounding for simplicity, the Median age in the classroom is 5, while the Mean Average age is 9. The teacher’s an outlier, ten times the age of her students, she skews the average — the students appear almost twice as old as they actually are.
Maine has millionaires — they skew the Mean average, but wouldn’t the Median average because there aren’t very many of them, but they are like the 50 year old teacher.
$10,818 is only 738 hours at minimum wage, 9 weeks at 40 hours in the summer is 360 hours, leaving only 9 hours a week for the other 43 hours in the year — this is a high school student’s earnings, and that would be considered part of the Median Household Income figure.
Look at another way — $10,818 at minimum wage is only 14 hours a week over the entire year. How many second income spouses work that few hours?
This doesn’t add up, it’s also a steady upward curve where the Household Median has ups and downs, and the only explanation is that it is a Mean average being skewed by the millionaires.
And that means the situation is even worse than this — Maine could well be #1…
And thanks to Trump’s tariffs, that burden will only go higher, much higher.
Welcome to The Peoples’ Republic of Maine Comrades! Only the non brain-washed complain in paradise!
And where does the money go? I doubt anyone in state government would tell you, even if they could.
Freedom plus tax.