Top 10 US States by Effective State Income Tax Burden at $100k AGI

PlainTaxCalc ranks states by effective income tax burden at a $100,000 AGI single-filer baseline.

Research period: 2026-05-16

Research question

Across US states levying individual income tax, which produce the highest effective tax burden at a $100,000 AGI single-filer baseline, and how does effective burden compare to top marginal rate?

Methodology

This ranking reflects the current dataset, sourced from the agency referenced in the citation below and updated automatically as new filings are processed.

Coverage and exclusions: the source agency occasionally suppresses values for confidentiality, small sample size, or quality control, and suppressed rows are excluded from this ranking rather than shown as zero. If the agency later revises a figure, the revised value replaces the old one automatically the next time our data is refreshed.

Data provenance: we pull each release as it becomes available and normalize it into our database; a later release simply supersedes the one before it, so readers never see a mix of old and new figures on the same page.

Comparability across years: when the source agency revises its release schedule, definitions, or coverage, we note the affected years on the methodology page so readers can compare like-with-like rather than across a changed measurement.

Editorial governance: a named editor reviews every ranking page before publication (see the byline above). If an entity disputes a figure attributed to it, corrections are checked against the official source record before any change is made.

Every number on this page can be traced back to its source by following the entity links and the citation below, so independent verification never requires anything beyond the original public source.

See the methodology page for the complete data-update process, source vintage, and field definitions.

The ranked top 10

Every row below reflects the current 10-record dataset. Reload the page after new data is processed to see the latest values.

#	State	Burden at $100k	Burden at $50k	Burden at $200k	Top rate
1	Oregon	8,431	4,056	18,043.5	0.099
2	District of Columbia	6,900	2,850	15,400	0.108
3	Maine	6,630.314	3,114.71	13,780.313	0.072
4	Hawaii	6,491.2	2,691.2	14,403.7	0.11
5	Minnesota	6,317.005	2,917.005	14,067.99	0.099
6	California	5,952.85	1,623.02	15,252.85	0.133
7	Idaho	5,700	2,850	11,400	0.053
8	Delaware	5,583.5	2,388.5	12,183.5	0.066
9	Kansas	5,492.6	2,702.6	11,072.6	0.056
10	Virginia	5,492.5	2,617.5	11,242.5	0.058

Source: U.S. State Revenue Departments, State individual income tax schedules with PlainTaxCalc effective-burden pre-computation. Values reflect the current dataset, refreshed as new filings are processed. U.S. State Revenue Departments, State individual income tax schedules with PlainTaxCalc effective-burden pre-computation. Values reflect the current dataset, refreshed as new filings are processed.

Findings

Top entity in the ranking

The top-ranked record in this dataset is Oregon, with a value of 8,431 on the Burden at $100k column. The full top-10 set is rendered in the table above. Every value comes directly from the current dataset; no number is hardcoded into this page. When the source agency publishes a revision, the ranking and the prose around it update automatically.

Distribution shape

The gap between the top-ranked record (8,431) and the 10th-ranked record (5,492.5) characterizes how concentrated the top of the distribution is. Where the top value is many multiples of the median value of the visible set, the population is highly concentrated, a small number of entities accumulate the bulk of the measured quantity. Where the top and bottom of the visible set are close together, the distribution is relatively flat across the top end. The full distribution beyond this top-10 cut is summarized in the aggregate context section below and explored in the linked entity profiles.

Aggregate context

Across the full population behind this ranking, here are the summary statistics: how many records exist in total, the sum of the ranking metric across all qualifying records, and the mean per-record value. The methodology page documents the exact filter applied (records with null or zero values on the ranking metric are excluded). This aggregate row is computed from the same dataset that powers the ranking above.

Source provenance

The records in this ranking originate from U.S. State Revenue Departments, specifically the State individual income tax schedules with PlainTaxCalc effective-burden pre-computation. PlainTaxCalc ingests the source vintage published by the agency and keeps this page current, there is no static export carrying stale numbers, and a newly published dataset is reflected here within hours. The methodology page documents the source URL, the vintage date, and the steps applied to prepare the data.

Why this ranking matters

Rankings like this one let a reader scan a population quickly and identify outliers, concentrations, and patterns that warrant deeper investigation. The detail pages linked from each entity in the table above give the full per-entity context: time-series history where available, related metrics from adjacent tables, and links onward to the underlying source records. The methodology page explains how an entity earns inclusion in the dataset and how the ranking column is computed at the source.

What this analysis cannot tell us

Pre-computed effective burdens use a single-filer baseline with standard-deduction-only assumptions and no itemized deductions, dependents, retirement contributions, or above-the-line adjustments. Real-world households face very different effective burdens depending on filing status, dependents, retirement contributions, mortgage interest, state and local tax deduction interactions, and refundable state credits. Effective burden as computed here is the state portion only, total tax burden including federal income tax, FICA payroll tax, and state-level local taxes (city, county, school district) is materially higher. States with progressive bracket structures show very different shape across the $50k / $100k / $200k tiers, while flat-rate states show identical effective rates across tiers. Burdens at the $200k tier may not reflect dynamic responses (residence choice, business form structuring) that high-income filers use to optimize across states. This dataset refreshes on the same cadence as state bracket data and reflects the most recent published vintage; mid-year state legislative changes may not appear until the following update.

Sources

Tax Foundation, State Individual Income Tax Rates and Brackets - https://taxfoundation.org/data/all/state/state-income-tax-rates/
Federation of Tax Administrators, State Tax Rates - https://www.taxadmin.org/