TRENTON, N.J. — The Tax Foundation delivered more grim news for the Garden State on Wednesday:
New Jersey’s business tax clime is now ranked last-place in its new 2019 State Business Tax Climate Index.
“Nobody should be shocked that raising business and income taxes by more than $1 billion would hurt New Jersey’s competitiveness,” said state Senator Tom Kean, Jr., in a statement reacting to the study’s release. “What’s shocking, however, is how New Jersey Democrats fail to see how their destructive policies hurt middle-class families who may lose jobs, raises, and an opportunity to build financial security.”
“While there are many ways to show how much is collected in taxes by state governments, the Index is designed to show how well states structure their tax systems and provides a road map for improvement,” explain the Tax Foundation list’s authors. Over the last year, New Jersey fell from 42nd to 47th place in the corporate taxation category, and equally disturbingly from 48th to 50th for individual income taxes.
Things may soon get worse before they every get better.
Democrats are currently considering changes to the state’s corporate business tax (CBT) which is expected to make the recently-increased corporate tax burden even more difficult to shoulder.
“Even after this last-place ranking, New Jersey Democrats are continuing their efforts to cement the Garden State’s reputation as a bad place to do business,” added Kean. “Their new CBT legislation represents another policy shift that again changes the state’s tax treatment of some of our largest employers after major changes imposed several months ago. This continued instability in our state’s tax policy poses a very real threat to New Jersey’s efforts to retain employers when those businesses can find more predictable and tax-friendly environments in other states.”
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