The Highest Top Rate in the Country Costs a $65,000 Filer Less Than Illinois's Flat Tax

California's top income tax rate, 13.30%, is the highest of the 51 US income tax jurisdictions. For tax year 2026 (the return filed in 2027) it charges a $65,000 single filer $1,975, or 3.04% of wages. Illinois taxes net income at a flat 4.95% and charges the same filer $3,073, which is $1,098 more.

The rest of the list behaves the same way. Sort the 51 jurisdictions by top marginal rate and California is 51st, counting from the lowest. Sort them by what this one filer owes and it is 21st. Illinois goes the other way, from 28th by rate to 49th by dollars. A top rate is what a state charges on income inside its highest bracket, and at $65,000 most states' highest bracket is nowhere in reach.

The filer here is the one every TaxMath ranking uses: one W-2, no dependents, the standard deduction where a state offers one, and no local income tax. All figures come from the same 2026 tables as the fleet ranking, and both ranks count from the cheapest, with ties sharing a place.

Five states whose top rate overstates the bill

The "starts" column is taxable income, after the deduction, for a single filer. Every one of these top rates begins far above this filer's taxable income, so none of them touches the bill.

California's sits at $1,000,000 because it is not part of the ordinary schedule at all. R&TC §17043, added by Proposition 63 in 2004, imposes "an additional tax ... at the rate of 1 percent on that portion of a taxpayer's taxable income in excess of one million dollars." Below that, California's ordinary schedule starts at 1.00%, and this filer's taxable income stops in the 8.00% band that begins at $57,542. New Jersey runs the same shape, with its 10.75% also reserved for income over $1,000,000; the filer's last dollar there falls in the band that begins at $40,000.

Rhode Island is the cleanest case. Its first bracket, at 3.75%, runs to $82,050, and after a $16,450 standard deduction this filer never leaves it. A three-bracket state with a 5.99% top rate taxes a $65,000 earner at a single rate, and the effective rate comes out at 2.80%.

Vermont moves the furthest of the five, 42nd by rate to 15th by dollars. Its 3.35% first band reaches $49,400, so after the $12,950 deduction nearly all of this filer's taxable income is taxed at the bottom rate, and only the slice above $49,400 pays 6.60%.

Five states whose top rate understates it

These states share two features: the top rate applies to all or nearly all of a $65,000 income, and the deduction in front of it is small. Against a federal standard deduction of $16,100, Illinois shields $2,925, Kentucky $3,360 and Michigan $5,900.

Illinois has no brackets to climb. 35 ILCS 5/201 sets the tax at "4.95% of the taxpayer's net income" for taxable years beginning on or after July 1, 2017, and the only shelter in front of it is the standard exemption that 35 ILCS 5/204 indexes from a $2,050 base. A flat rate with a small exemption puts nearly the whole wage at the headline rate, so Illinois's effective rate of 4.73% sits close to its 4.95% top. California's 3.04% sits far below its own.

Oklahoma and Virginia are graduated, but their top brackets start at $7,200 and $17,000 of taxable income respectively. For a $65,000 earner, a schedule that tops out that early works almost like a flat tax at the top rate.

Utah and Alabama belong in this group by the table's arithmetic, at 41st and 46th by dollars against 23rd and 30th by rate, but the figures overstate both. Utah's 4.45% is offset by the taxpayer tax credit in Utah Code §59-10-1018, 6% of the federal standard deduction, reduced by 1.3 cents for each dollar of state taxable income above $15,095 for a single filer. Alabama lets every resident subtract "the amount of federal income tax paid or accrued within the taxable year" under §40-18-15(c). Neither is in the tables behind this ranking, so both states' bills here are too high, and each ranks as more expensive than it is. They are left out of the table above for that reason.

North Dakota's 2.50% top rate, and a bill of zero

North Dakota's top rate is 2.50%, 10th by rate, and it charges this filer $0. Its first bracket is a 0% band running to $49,575 of taxable income, and taxable income starts after the federal standard deduction. Wages of $65,000 less $16,100 stay inside the zero band, so North Dakota ties for first with the nine states that do not tax wages. That makes 10 jurisdictions charging this filer nothing, one more than the number with no income tax. The Tax Commissioner's rate page still prints the 2025 schedule, whose zero band ends at $48,475; the 2026 band above is the indexed one in the TaxMath tables.

The two most expensive states

Hawaii is 50th by rate and 50th by dollars. No other state's two ranks match at the expensive end. Its 11.00% top rate starts at $325,000, but its brackets climb so early that this filer's taxable income already reaches the 7.60% band at $48,000.

Oregon is 51st by dollars and 46th by rate, the most expensive of the 51 for this filer at $5,114, or 7.87% of wages. The cause sits two brackets below the top: Oregon's 8.75% band starts at $11,400, so most of a $65,000 wage is taxed at that rate, and none of it at the 9.90% headline. Oregon charges this filer $3,139 more than California. Two Oregon provisions are missing from the figure, and both would lower it: the subtraction for federal income tax, capped at $8,500 for 2025, and the personal exemption credit, $256 for 2025, both described in Publication OR-17.

All 51, ranked by what the filer pays

What the figures include

State and District of Columbia income tax only, for a single filer with $65,000 of wages and the standard deduction, computed from the same rate tables as the TaxMath calculator. Local income taxes are excluded, which matters most in New York City, Maryland's counties, Indiana's counties, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Detroit. Payroll, sales and property taxes are excluded too, so this is not a total-burden ranking. Two state mechanisms the tables do not model, Utah's credit and Alabama's federal-tax deduction, are named above; Oregon's are named with Oregon.

23 of the 51 jurisdictions carry provisional 2026 figures, which means the law is known but the revenue department has not yet published its own tables. California, Vermont, New Jersey and Michigan are among them, as the last column shows. A provisional figure can still move before filing season, and the 2026 status board lists what each state is waiting on.

To see how the top rates themselves moved, the 2022–2026 rate history ranks every cut. To put your own wage through any pair of states, open the calculator with California set against Illinois: at $65,000 the state with the highest top rate in the country is the one that costs $1,098 less.

This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute tax advice. Consult a qualified tax professional for guidance specific to your situation.