President Trump may trash California for “out of control” taxes, but it turns out the Golden State has one of the lowest effective tax rates in the United States.
On the same day that Trump toured his border wall prototypes in San Diego, a study released Tuesday by WalletHub found that California has the eighth lowest effective tax rate at 8.77 percent. That’s less than Florida’s 8.83 percent and a little more than a percentage point higher than the 7.44 percent in legendarily low-tax Nevada.
California does have a state income tax, but it’s not as high as many other states and property tax rates are lower than most.
“Low income taxes don’t always mean low taxes as a whole,” WalletHub said, explaining that real estate, excise and sales taxes add to the burden for most Americans.
“For example, while the state of Washington’s citizens don’t pay income tax, they still end up spending over 8 percent of their annual income on sales and excise taxes,” WalletHub said. “Texas residents also don’t pay income tax, but spend 1.86 percent of their income on real estate taxes, one of the highest rates in the country.”
“Compare these to California, where residents owe a little over 4 percent of their income in sales and excise taxes, and just 0.79 percent in real estate tax,” WalletHub said.
Trump remains critical of California, however. “They have the highest taxes in the United States. The place is totally out of control,” he told reporters while touring the border wall prototypes.