State Tax Info Not Always Easy to Find

The state tax sites of Colorado, Illinois, Pennsylvania, Utah and Virginia are the easiest for taxpayers to use in terms of transparency, according to evaluations by the Tax Foundation.

In March, the authors, Ellen Kant and Joseph Henchman, tested how many clicks it took to find 2012 income tax rates from a given agency’s homepage. In five states -- Indiana, Kentucky, Minnesota, New Jersey and North Carolina -- taxpayers must make five clicks to find this information from the homepage. Taxpayers in three states (Colorado, Massachusetts and Pennsylvania) can get it in two clicks.

Also analyzed: Whether a given state made available 2012 and 2013 tax rates, the tax table and tax forms. While nearly all states had most of this information, analysts were able to find all of this information only in five states (Colorado, Illinois, Pennsylvania, Utah, and Virginia; some of these states have one-rate taxes, making tax tables unnecessary).

Most state revenue sites don’t yet provide 2013 tax rate information even though 2013 income tax is currently being withheld from taxpayers’ paychecks, the study stressed.

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