When it comes to living in the US, New Jersey isn’t seen as the worst state of the bunch… but it’s close: according to a recent YouGov poll, the Garden State ranks 3rd from the bottom, only above Alabama and Mississippi (DC is not yet a state, but the Biden admin is doing everything in its power to change that).
To be sure, while much of this catastrophic reputation may be without merit, the state’s governor is doing everything in his power to make it more than justified. Starting with the state’s stern refusal to not follow the new CDC regulations (confirming yet again that masking was indeed all about posturing and politics from day one and not “the science”), and unlike neighboring NY which will fully lift its capacity restrictions on Wednesday when it lifts its mask mandate, NJ Gov Murphy has decided to make his own “science” and is keeping its indoor mask mandate in place indefinitely.
But while the mask mandate (we hope) is “transitory”, a far more credible reason why New Jersey will soon be the most loathed state in the union, and that’s because according to a new study from fintech company Self, residents of New Jersey will face the highest tax burdens over a lifetime: just shy of $1 million.
While New Jersey is emerging as the 9th circle of taxation hell, at the other end of the scale, West Virginians will pay the least over their lives, at $321,000, the study showed.
Those living in New Jersey will pay on average a grand total of $931,698, well above the $827,185 for Massachusetts residents and $805,213 for Connecticut. Nationwide, Americans will pay $525,037 over their lives, which includes taxes on income, property, cars and retail spending, Bloomberg reported.
Putting this historic burden in context, the average person will spend about one-third of their earnings on taxes, according to the study, which is based on the 2019 Consumer Expenditure Report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, although that hardly presupposes that the average Garden State resident will make $3 million; quite the contrary once the mass exodus from the most taxes state begins in earnest and all the wealthiest residents bail for more hospitable pastures.
But wait, it gets better: the payments, which aren’t adjusted for inflation, will be even higher once Joe Biden’s proposed tax increases get approved by Congress. And, as we reported earlier, Biden is also pressing for significant relief for lower-income and middle-class families, including an extended, stepped up child tax credit which will push up the taxes even higher.
Most of the lifetime tax bill, nearly two-thirds, is in the form of state and federal levies on income. Auto taxes cost an average of $29,521 over the years. Californians and New Yorkers will pay the most in sales taxes, roughly $40,000, over their lifetimes.