If you’re a business owner in Washington, you’re among the country’s five worst states for sales tax.
According to the Tax Foundation’s 2019 State Business Tax Climate Index, Washington is ranked as the 49th best state—a ranking that has remained steady since 2017.
The lowest-scoring states “are states that have high sales tax rates, high excise tax rates, or apply the sales tax to a variety of business inputs,” while the highest-scoring states include states without a sales tax.
So what does this mean for small business owners and consumers? The study defines a well-structured sales tax system as one that “applies to the end-user at the point of sale but does not apply to the sale of machinery, raw materials, and other business inputs, as those taxes increase the costs of production and ultimately get passed along to consumers in the form of higher prices.”
The highest-scoring states are New Hampshire, Delaware, Montana, Oregon, and Alaska. The lowest-scoring states are New Jersey, Tennessee, Arizona, Alabama, Washington, Louisiana.
Read more about the study here: https://taxfoundation.org/ranking-sales-taxes-2019-state-business-tax-climate-index/