Arizona a U.S. leader

Patrick Fleenor, an economist at the Tax Foundation in Washington, gets 20 calls a week or so from retirees wanting to know where to go to retire. Why him? Because they want to go where the taxes are lowest.

"I don't tell them where to move. I don't think that's my place," Fleenor said. "If they ask me, though, I would say that Arizona is very wealth-friendly. It's one of the most wealth-friendly states in the nation."

Yes, if you hate taxes, Arizona is a great place to live. Arizona has one of the lowest, flattest income-tax structures in the nation. Income taxes have been cut 28% in the past six years.

Property taxes are about average for the nation. Sales taxes are also in the middle of the pack in the nation, but polls show that consumers find sales taxes to be the least egregious of the many different tax options. And Arizona has been busy re-engineering its revenue base to become more dependent on sales taxes. This fiscal year, 46% of all state revenue will come from sales taxes, while reliance on income tax has dropped to 34%.

For the most part, the state's resident have it pretty good.

"My first effort in office will be the problem of taxes. We simply have

to get taxpayers some relief some way."

- Howard Pyle, governor-elect, Nov. 10, 1950

The Arizona sales tax rate is 5.6%.

Maricopa County adds on .7% sales tax to support roads and jails, totaling the tax to 6.3%.

Each city may add sales tax. The total of the Arizona sales tax and Maricopa County sales tax, 6.3%, added to the city sales tax rate, one gets the total retail sales tax paid when purchasing merchandise in that particular city. Arizona does not charge sales tax on food purchased at grocery stores for home consumption . Phoenix, Mesa, and Youngtown do not charge the sales tax on food allowed by cities.