Do you remember when Texas Governor Rick Perry went on that anti-Maryland tour, trying to get local businesses to consider relocating? One of his selling points was that Texas has a much more favorable tax climate for businesses, in part because it’s one of the states that has no state-level income taxes at all.
But a new study that takes a comprehensive look at the business tax climate throughout the world has found that Baltimore has the 4th most-favorable “tax index” (that is, the average taxes for a whole bunch of business sectors) in the entire United States. Incidentally, the top-ranked Texas city is Houston, which comes in 16th.
The difference is, this study looks at all the tax breaks each city gives to various sectors, including incentives for digital development and job creation. Baltimore’s tax breaks for manufacturing firms and research & development helped propel it toward the top of the list. But despite Baltimore’s attempts to position itself as a hub for tech start-ups, the tax burden for these companies is still (relatively) higher.
