Most states have a sales tax ranging between 4% and 7%. The average sales tax for a state is 5.09%. 32 states fall above this average, and 18 states fall below this average, suggesting that the few states with a sales tax of 0% bring down the average.
There is only one state with a sales tax over 7%, which is California, and is also the state with the largest population. There are six states with sales tax under 4%. Colorado has a sales tax of 2.9%. The other five, Oregon, New Hampshire, Montana, Delaware, Alaska, have state sales taxes of 0%.
The average local sales taxes range from -.03% to 5.14%. The average “average local sales tax” is 1.45%. There are 18 states whose average local tax is above this average and 32 states that are below it. This is the inverse of how the state sales tax is distributed.
There is only one state with an average local sales tax above 5%--Alabama—which also has a state sales tax of 4%. New Jersey is the only state with a negative average local sales tax (-.03%). 12 other states (24% of all states) have an average local sales tax of 0%. These states are Delaware, Montana, New Hampshire, Oregon, Maine, Kentucky, Maryland, Michigan, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Indiana. There seems to be no correlation between state tax and average local tax.
There are five states that have an average local tax higher than their state tax-- Alaska, New York, Colorado, Louisiana, Alabama.
The combined sales taxes for state and average local range from 0% to 9.47%. The average combined sales tax is 6.35%. 33 states fall above this average and 17 fall below. This is about the same distribution as the state sales tax. One state, Connecticut, is exactly average with a combine sales tax of 6.35%. Four states—Oregon, New Hampshire, Montana, and Delaware—have a combined sales tax of 0%.