State tax burdens in the Southeast

North Carolina has a higher tax burden than most Southeastern states.

But it has not been ranked the highest among the dozen states considered to be part of the Southeast by the Tax Foundation, a Washington-based nonprofit.

Using as its guide the states considered Southeastern by the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis, the foundation has ranked North Carolina between the fourth and second Southeast states in terms of tax burden since 1977.

A recent ad targeting Democratic Senate candidate Kay Hagan cited research by the Tax Foundation, among others, to back its claim that budgets she helped write "pushed North Carolina to the highest taxes in the Southeast."

In 2002, the year before Hagan became a co-chair of the Senate appropriations committee, the Tax Foundation ranked North Carolina the third highest state in the Southeast, below Kentucky and Arkansas.

Over the following five years, North Carolina remained in the top three, but it was never in the top spot.

In 2008, it dropped to fourth, below Arkansas, Georgia and Virginia.

Still, it was close. The differences between the rankings were often based on a tenth of a percent and the states were only a few slots apart in the overall rankings.