Henry McMaster’s Limp-Wristed ‘Tax Cut’

While I do agree that income taxes can be lower substantially in this state, there is some nuance to this…. yes Texas has no income tax but does have possibly the most brutal residential and commercial property taxes in the Southeast (some stats I’ve seen say it’s the highest in the southeast). Florida also has other higher offsetting taxes to the absence of income tax as well. You have to look at the overall tax burden in a state to get a true picture. When you do that, SC has the 6th lowest overall comprehensive tax burden of the 50 states at 7.86% – and honestly, the variation of the lowest nine states (apart from #50) is from 7.82 to 7.90 percent. On the comprehensive level, we edge out Tennessee (at 7.96%), as well as Florida, Kentucky and Texas – all of the states cited by the article as having no income tax. Alaska is far and away the lowest of all 50 states at 4.6% – they stand apart from all the rest. We could stand to still lower ours, but we are by no means a high-tax state on the comprehensive level.