SANTA FE, N.M., Oct. 28, 2014—The nonpartisan Tax Foundation today released its 2015 State Business Tax Climate Index, and the annual report ranked New Mexico just 35th best in the nation. But the state director for New Mexico’s largest small-business association said neighboring states are pointing the way up.
The index measured a state’s corporate taxes, individual income taxes, sales tax, unemployment insurance tax and property-tax rank to come up with an overall score. New Mexico came out only 35th in the nation. “The absence of a major tax is a common factor among many of the top ten states,” wrote the index’s authors. New Mexico has no such absence in any of them.
“Let’s give ourselves a hand for holding the line on property taxes and courageously reforming unemployment insurance taxes,” said Minda McGonagle, New Mexico state director for the National Federation of Independent Business. “But much more needs to be done. The existing trifecta of high corporate, individual and gross receipts rates must be broken apart. Our neighboring states are doing better than us by reforming only one or two of this big three. New Mexico’s business climate is man-made. The good news is we can change it, if we have the will to do so. It isn’t the storminess of current economic challenges that our business owners fear most, it’s the reluctance of our state’s legislative leaders to boldly walk out of the dense fog of inertia.”
With 350,000 dues-paying members across the nation, including more than 1,500 in New Mexico, NFIB is the nation’s largest and leading small-business association. More information about small business, especially its difference from big business, can be found in this media kit with brief, single pages of bulleted information.
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For more than 70 years, the National Federation of Independent Business has been the Voice of Small Business, taking the message from Main Street to the halls of Congress and all 50 state legislatures. NFIB annually surveys its members on state and federal issues vital to their survival as America’s economic engine and biggest creator of jobs. NFIB’s educational mission is to remind policymakers that small businesses are not smaller versions of bigger businesses; they have very different challenges and priorities.
National Federation of Independent Business/New Mexico
505-228-3755
