With April 15 near and prognosticating Americans waiting until the last minute to file their 2008 income tax returns, let's observe a moment of silence for those poor folks in New Jersey where the Tax Foundation of Washington, D.C., reports the highest combined state and local income tax burden among the 50 states for 2008.

Moment over.

The foundation says while Americans as a whole paid 9.7 percent of their income in combined state and local taxes, New Jerseyans paid 11.8 percent, making the Garden State No. 1 in the nation.

No. 2 was New York, but not by much. The foundation said the combined taxes paid in New York was 11.7 percent.

Connecticut is third highest at 11.1 percent.

Two of West Virginia's neighbors are in the Top 10, Maryland and Ohio.

The rest of the 10 highest states are Maryland at 10.8 percent, Hawaii at 10.6 percent, California at 10.5 percent, Ohio at 10.4 percent, Vermont at 10.3 percent, Wisconsin at 10.2 percent and Rhode Island at 10.2 percent.

The lowest combined state and local burden is Alaska at 6.4 percent. Nevada was next at 6.6 percent.

Next in the bottom 10 are Wyoming at 7 percent, Florida at 7.4 percent, New Hampshire at 7.6 percent, South Dakota at 7.9 percent, Tennessee at 8.3 percent, Texas and Louisiana at 8.4 percent and Arizona at 8.5 percent.

West Virginia is nearer to the middle of the pack and is ranked 29th at 9.3 percent.

The Tax Foundation has data from 1977.

It calculates the burden by measuring per capita taxes paid to the state of residence and taxes paid to other states.

Just looking at taxes paid to the state of residence and not to other states, what I thought was an interesting statistic was in 1977 when West Virginians paid 9.9 percent, or $420 per capita in total taxes. The per capita amount paid has increased every year since 1977 to $1,982 in 2008.

West Virginia was among the costliest in 1985 when it was ranked fifth in the nation at 10.4 percent.

The lowest was 1988 when the West Virginia was at 8.6 percent and ranked 42nd among states.

More interesting are the numbers from Ohio. It went from the bottom to the top in 31 years as the percentage of state and local taxes also has increased most every year since 1977.

In 1977, Ohio was in the bottom 10, ranking 45th with a rate of 8.7 percent. Residents per capita paid $420. Now it's seventh highest in the nation and consecutive increases were posted every year since 1997, the foundation said.

Residents per capita in 2008 paid $2,937 in combined taxes.

While West Virginia and Ohio were comparable 31 years ago, the scale went out of whack by 2008 with Ohio a third higher in total taxes paid than West Virginia.

The non-partisan Tax Foundation was established in 1937 by a group of businessmen in New York City concerned with keeping an eye on government spending and taxation. The purpose of the research group is to education Americans about tax policy.

Contact Jess Mancini at jmancini@newsandsentinel.com