California may be the dream destination for many Americans, it also has the highest tax of any state – 10.40% on average. The reason: the Golden State’s legendarily lamentable public finances. And Hawaii may be exotic, it certainly isn’t a fiscal paradise, with an average income tax of 9.99%. Oregon, Minnesota, DC, New York, Vermont and Maine also have average state income taxes above 7.5%. The perceptive reader will have noticed these are all, in political terms, ‘blue states’ (and one district).