(This article first appeared at JBartlett.org)
New Hampshire this year slipped ahead of Texas to claim the No. 6 spot on a national index of state tax competitiveness published by the Tax Foundation.
Formerly the Business Tax Climate Index, the newly redesigned 2025 State Tax Competitiveness Index combines the Tax Foundation’s indexes for corporate, individual income, sales, property and unemployment insurance taxes.
New Hampshire ranked No. 1 on sales taxes, 12 on individual income taxes, 27 on unemployment insurance taxes, 32 on corporate taxes and 39 on property taxes.
That was good enough to place New Hampshire sixth overall, behind perennial top-five states Wyoming, South Dakota, Alaska, Florida, and Montana.
Texas, previously in the sixth spot, fell to seventh, with New Hampshire edging up one spot by a fraction of a point.
(The foundation applied its new methodology to previous studies going back to 2020 so states could compare their progress.)
Texas ranked No. 1 on individual income taxes, but was in the bottom half on all other taxes. New Hampshire’s only personal income tax—the Interest & Dividends Tax—is scheduled to expire at the end of this year.
Wyoming and South Dakota, the top two states for years, tied as usual for No. 1 on both corporate and individual income taxes.
Florida (with which New Hampshire competes for residents, workers and retirees) also tied for No. 1 in individual income taxes. It ranked No. 10 in unemployment insurance taxes, 14 in sales taxes, 16 in corporate taxes, and 21 in property taxes.
The Tax Foundation praised New Hampshire lawmakers for voting in 2023 to let businesses fully deduct interest expenses in the year incurred, rather than over time.
“This change, following on the heels of rate reductions to New Hampshire’s two business taxes, helped New Hampshire’s corporate component ranking improve by eight places, from 40th to 32nd,” the report noted.
New Hampshire was dinged for high property and corporate taxes.
The report noted that the Interest & Dividends Tax rate change from 4 percent to 3 percent did not alter this year’s ranking because the state was already so competitive. But eliminating the tax is seen as a positive step.
“New Hampshire will officially join the ranks of the individual income tax-free states once its low-rate interest and dividends (I&D) tax is eliminated in January 2025, further solidifying its competitive standing overall,” according to the report.
To improve New Hampshire’s tax competitiveness, the Tax Foundation recommends “eliminating the I&D tax…adopting permanent full expensing” and improving the state’s treatment of net operating loss carry forward,” all things legislators have tried to address in recent years.
