The hidden costs of low-tax states
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America's state governments now run on two very different tax engines: income in many coastal and professional-class states, and consumption in much of the Sun Belt and low-tax-growth belt.
Why it matters: States are not just competing over tax rates. They've built systems around which parts of the economy to tax — and which residents feel it most.
- States marketing themselves as low-tax havens often still collect heavily through shopping, gas, insurance, tourism and other transactions — while many blue and purple states rely more on wages, capital gains and corporate profits.
By the numbers: In 2025, 27 states got their biggest share of tax revenue from sales and gross receipts taxes, while 21 relied most heavily on income taxes — individual and corporate combined, according to an Axios analysis of new Census state tax data.
- The most sales-dependent states were Texas at 86.6% of state tax revenue, South Dakota at 83.1%, Florida at 80.3%, Tennessee at 79.4%, Washington at 74.6% and Nevada at 73.9%.
- The most income-dependent states were Oregon at 71%, New York at 67%, Massachusetts at 66.8%, California at 61.1% and Connecticut at 59.5%.
State of play: The U.S. tax map has been remade over the past century.
- When the Census Bureau began collecting state government finance data in 1902, there were no state sales taxes on general sales, tobacco, motor fuel or alcohol.
- By 2025, every state collected some kind of general or selective sales and gross receipts tax, and those taxes made up 45.4% of state tax revenue nationally.
Zoom in: Texas and Florida, two of the country's no-income-tax growth states, are also two of the most consumption-tax-reliant state governments in America.
- That means their state budgets are less directly tied to residents' paychecks and more tied to spending, tourism, fuel, insurance and business activity.
The other side: California, New York, Massachusetts and Connecticut depend heavily on individual and corporate income collections.
- That makes their budgets more exposed to high earners, business profits, bonuses and market swings.
Yes, but: The divide is not perfectly partisan. Washington, a deep-blue state with no broad-based personal income tax, relied on sales and gross receipts taxes for 74.6% of state tax revenue in 2025, an Axios analysis found.
- New Hampshire, a politically mixed state, had the nation's highest corporate net income tax share, at 32.9% of state tax revenue.
Friction point: The shift toward consumption taxes could make state tax systems feel lighter for high earners while taking a bigger bite from lower-income families.
- Because Black and Hispanic households are disproportionately represented among lower-income and lower-wealth Americans, the tax divide among states could quietly reinforce racial inequality.
Editor's note: The chart was updated to clarify that income tax includes individual and corporate taxes.
