It Goes To Eleven! NH Named #1 In Taxpayer ROI For 11th Year

By Michael Graham, NH Journal

For the 11th consecutive year, a national data analysis declares New Hampshire’s state government the best deal for taxpayers in the nation.

Every year, WalletHub ranks the 50 states based on taxpayer return on investment. On Tuesday, the annual WalletHub report once again ranked New Hampshire No. 1 and credited the state’s lack of an income tax as a key reason for its efficiency with tax dollars.

“New Hampshire is the state with the best taxpayer return on investment, which is due in large part to the fact that it has no state income tax,” according to the report.

“The Granite State’s tax resources have had a good impact on crime prevention and the environment, as the state has the lowest crime rate and the third-lowest air pollution in the country. It has one of the best public school systems as well.”

The news comes amid a new debate over whether New Hampshire should adopt an income tax to shift state education funding from property taxes. A new poll from the Saint Anselm College Survey Center released Monday found Granite Staters overwhelmingly oppose an income tax — 71 percent oppose — including a plurality of Democrats.

That makes New Hampshire an outlier among states where Democrats hold most of the top elected offices, such as U.S. House and Senate seats. From Washington state to Maine, there has been a wave of state-level tax hikes over the past year, with more likely on the way.

Not New Hampshire.

“The New Hampshire Advantage is worth protecting, and we’re working to preserve it every day,” said Gov. Kelly Ayotte. “By keeping taxes low, spending responsibly, and staying focused on results, we are making sure New Hampshire remains the best place in America to live, work, and raise a family.”

Voters aren’t happy with the tax increase trend, according to WalletHub’s Taxpayer Survey. It found that about 66 percent of Americans think their current tax rate is too high.

To determine the states with the best taxpayer ROI, WalletHub compared state and local tax collections with the quality of services residents receive across all 50 states. The dataset includes 29 key metrics.

New Hampshire has consistently ranked at or near the top in measurements of economic liberty and fiscal responsibility. For example, last year, New Hampshire was again named the best place in North America for economic freedom by the Canada-based Fraser Institute. Florida and South Dakota followed New Hampshire at the top of the ROI rankings. No other New England state made the top 10, and only one, Rhode Island (No. 19), made the top 20. New Mexico was at the bottom of the list, narrowly edging out Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom’s California.

The rankings reveal a partisan political trend: Nine of the top 10 states are Republican or red-leaning (if you include New Hampshire in that list), while seven of the bottom 10 are blue states like Delaware, New York, and Vermont.

How does New Hampshire do it? Greg Moore with Americans For Prosperity says he gets that question quite a bit when he travels, particularly in the Northeast.

“The answer is that if you don’t waste money on bureaucracy, graft, and having government do things it shouldn’t, you really don’t need to tax people that much. The enforcement mechanisms are structured like a true citizen legislature that can’t be bought, an Executive Council that holds agencies accountable, and a citizenry that claps back at any major efforts to raise taxes.

“What we have is working for those of us who want to keep more of our hard-earned money, and those are the type of people who move to the Granite State.”

This story was originally published by the NH Journal, an online news publication dedicated to providing fair, unbiased reporting on, and analysis of, political news of interest to New Hampshire. For more stories from the NH Journal, visit NHJournal.com.