I am writing today to announce the closure of the New Mexico Independent. After three and a half years of operation in New Mexico, the board of the American Independent News Network, has decided to shift publication of its news…
While environmental activists played their part yesterday during demonstrations at the capitol building, going so far as to dress up as solar panels and to sing the tune of “You Are My Sunshine,” their counterparts, the anti-cap-and-trade contingency who has…
Roughly one quarter of University of New Mexico students are unimpressed with the state’s flagship public school, according to a survey that questioned college students about their higher education experiences.
New Mexico’s tax system ranks 33rd in friendliness to business, according to an annual ranking of states.
But while New Mexico’s overall ranking slipped 10 spots from last year’s 23rd best, the state’s income tax system still is better than 30 other states, rating 20th best, according to an annual report from the Washington-based Tax Foundation.
The Tax Foundation is a nonpartisan research organization that generally advocates lower tax rates and broader tax bases. It puts out an annual ranking of states in business friendliness.
The report’s public unveiling comes in the last days of the New Mexico governor’s race in which the state’s tax policy occasionally has come up for discussion, albeit in passing remarks rather than in serious, in-depth discussion. It’s difficult to tell whether the report will lead to even more back-and-forth in the waning days of the race between the candidates.
Republican Susana Martinez has criticized Gov. Bill Richardson, and by extension, her opponent Democratic Lt. Gov. Diane Denish, for what she has called the state’s onerous tax rates.
Meanwhile both Martinez and Denish have promised not to raise taxes during their first year in office if elected, a promise some state lawmakers have said might prove difficult to keep, given the state’s fiscal problems.
The state already faces a projected $260 million gap for the year that starts July 1, and that hole could grow larger.
The Tax Foundation summed up why it focused on states’ friendliness to business early in the report, saying that states with more competitive tax systems were likely to attract more businesses.
Here’s an excerpt from the report:
The modern market is characterized by mobile capital and labor. Therefore, companies will locate where they have the greatest competitive advantage. States with the best tax systems will be the most competitive in attracting new businesses and most effective at generating economic and employment
The foundation said New Mexico’s decision earlier this year to increase the state gross receipts tax by an eighth of a cent contributed to the state’s tumbling from having the 23rd-best tax system to 33rd. State lawmakers passed the tax measure as a response to the state’s ongoing economic woes.
New Mexico’s gross receipts tax system meanwhile ranked near the bottom, at 45th, when compared to other states, the foundation said.
The state’s ranking for its income tax structure stayed basically the same. New Mexico ranked 19th last year.
In recent years New Mexico has lowered the top income tax rate from 8.2 percent, to 4.9 percent, earning accolades from some, especially anti-tax groups, but criticism from others. Advocates for the poor have said the state’s decision to lower the income tax rate has meant cuts to services as the state deals with falling revenues have fallen disproportionately on the low-income.
In other areas, the state’s corporate tax burden ranked 31st this year while New Mexico ranked 1st, or least onerous, in property tax burden, according to the foundation.
