North Dakota is a High Tax State

North Dakota historically has been a low tax state. That fit in with the self reliant attitude by North Dakotans. We felt that government had it’s place and that was good enough.
It looks like we are at a crossroads as to the direction North Dakota is going to go.
Back in April Brenarlo found this source (link added oops) that showed that North Dakota had jumped to 21st in taxes per capita.

North Dakota was the other big gainer, moving up seven spots to No. 21.

So we went from 28th in 2004 to 21st in 2005.
I got to thinking that North Dakota percapita earnings were under average while our per capita taxes were well above average. What would our effective tax rate be comparing the per capita income with the per capita taxes. I found the per capita income on a spreadsheet I downloaded from the Bureau of Economic Analysis.
We came out with an effective tax rate of 7%. North Dakota didn’t jump up the list that much when it came to this analysis. But is is clear that North Dakota is the 19th highest taxed state in this country. Eighteen states tax more than us and 31 tax lower than us. For comparison Minnesota is at 8.3%, South Dakota (my heroes) is at 4.5% and Montana is at 6.5%.
When the legislature meets next year they are going to set the course of whether North Dakota goes the way of the high tax states or back to our traditional belief in government.
Right now we are sitting with an huge deficit SURPLUS (corrected). Everyone in government has a plan to spend it, from even higher teacher salaries, to spending it on higher higher education to a farm disaster fund. I say we are taxed too high and it must be returned to the tax payer.
Every legislative season the legislature looks at what they spent last time and grows it. If we grow state spending with the surplus they’ll want an increase on top of the windfall they get this year. So when Governor Hoeven and the state legislature meet next year are they going to push us higher up the list or are we going to take a time out in the growth of state government.
I included all of my figures on the extended entry.