FSB Who loves small business best? 2006
Which states are low on taxes and light on government regulations? Exclusive rankings for FSB.com from the Small Business & Entrepreneurship Council.*
Virginia
Rank: 14
Taxes
Top personal income tax rate 5.75%
Top capital gains tax rate on individuals 5.75%
Top corporate income tax rate 6.00%
S-corporations tax rate 0.00%
State AMT? No
Estate or inheritance tax? Yes
Gas tax ($ per gallon) 0.196
Health-insurance regulations
No individual may be turned down  
Energy costs
Electricity (cents/kilowatthour) 6.63
Gas (average price per gallon)** $2.06
Bureaucracy
State and local govt. bureaucrats per 100 residents 5.52
Labor
State minimum wage/hour $5.15***
"Right to work" state? Yes****
Footnote:
* SBE Council, a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit which advocates for reduced government taxes and regulations on small business, tends to lobby for the Republican agenda when it comes to taxes and regulations.
** Source: Oil Price Information Service (http://www.opisnet.com). Gas prices are not part of the SBEC's Small Business Survival Index.
*** State has no minimum wage. This is the federal minimum wage.
**** In right-to-work states, employees are not required to join a union or pay union dues to work at companies with labor unions.
Low taxes
1 South Dakota
2 Nevada
3 Wyoming
Low energy costs
1 Kentucky
2 West Virginia
3 Missouri
How we ranked the states
Which states are low on taxes and light on government regulations? In these exclusive rankings for FSB.com, the Small Business & Entrepreneurship Council, a nonprofit advocacy group in Washington, D.C. used their Small Business Survival Index to rate the 50 states and Washington, D.C. according to some of the major government-imposed or -related costs affecting investment, entrepreneurship, and business. SBE Council, which advocates for reduced government taxes and regulations on small business, supports a mostly Republican agenda. (more)

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Most stock quote data provided by BATS. Market indices are shown in real time, except for the DJIA, which is delayed by two minutes. All times are ET. Disclaimer. Morningstar: © 2018 Morningstar, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Factset: FactSet Research Systems Inc. 2018. All rights reserved. Chicago Mercantile Association: Certain market data is the property of Chicago Mercantile Exchange Inc. and its licensors. All rights reserved. Dow Jones: The Dow Jones branded indices are proprietary to and are calculated, distributed and marketed by DJI Opco, a subsidiary of S&P Dow Jones Indices LLC and have been licensed for use to S&P Opco, LLC and CNN. Standard & Poor's and S&P are registered trademarks of Standard & Poor's Financial Services LLC and Dow Jones is a registered trademark of Dow Jones Trademark Holdings LLC. All content of the Dow Jones branded indices © S&P Dow Jones Indices LLC 2018 and/or its affiliates.