The false claim that “Maine ranks No. 1 in tax burden” was repeated so often in this year’s political ads that it has come to be generally accepted.
No doubt some of the candidates featured in those ads believe the statement to be factual, even though at least one was in a leadership position in the Legislature and certainly ought to have known that it was not accurate.
At best, tax burden calculations are apt to be misleading. They do not, for example, take into account taxes paid by out-of-staters.
Also, since tax burden calculation involves totaling state and local taxes, then dividing by some measure of personal income, Maine tends toward the top of the list because Maine incomes are low. It is possible to argue, only partly tongue-in-cheek, that Maine could lower its tax burden by raising the minimum wage while keeping tax collections constant.
The assertion that Maine’s tax burden is the nation’s highest most likely refers to a 2001 U.S. Census Bureau report that did, indeed, rank Maine as having had the nation’s highest tax burden in 1998.
In August 2001, however, Christopher St. John of the Maine Center for Economic Policy published an article pointing out both inaccuracies and accounting discrepancies in the bureau’s calculations. The correct ranking for 1998 would have placed Maine at 12th in tax burden. St. John also noted that, since 1998, Maine has lowered its sales tax from 6 to 5 percent and cut taxes by $450 million.
For any who doubt MECEP as a source, another New England organization has used more recent census statistics to calculate a ranking of all 50 states by tax burden. According to this group’s Web site, Maine’s present ranking is 17th. The organization? The Vermont Republican Party.
Bob Tymoczko, Lewiston
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