Regarding “Our View: What to do about Maine’s tax burden” (April 15):
The points made and suggestions offered are good, but it is important to recognize that the rating of Maine as No. 3 in the country in terms of tax burden is, in many ways, an artifact of the way tax burden is defined: namely, total tax revenues divided by total personal income paid by residents.
So, the fact that Maine wages and salaries are less than those of many other states (for the same jobs) automatically increases the calculated tax burden. Thus one obvious way to reduce the burden would be to pay Mainers better!
In addition, Maine has a large proportion of expensive (and thus highly taxed) second-home properties whose owners live out of state and whose income is not included in the tax burden calculation. If the incomes of these wealthy summer people were included, the real estate tax burden would look considerably lower. Their taxes are counted, but not their incomes. This skews the result and makes the tax-burden rankings largely meaningless.
Jerry LaSala
Portland
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