Tax season is upon us once again, as the April 18 deadline looms for millions of Americans across the country who need to compile their W-2s and put together their taxes to send to the IRS. It’s a stressful time for many—and we are jealous of the people who can file their federal and state taxes with their eyes closed. 

But which states are seriously concerned about tax day, meeting deadlines, and filing to the federal government? Is there a greater sense of urgency in some states more than others? We decided to try to find out. 

Methodology

We used Google Trends to identify data over a five-year period (2019-2023) for various tax-related search terms on Google associated with the phrase: “When are taxes due?” We exclusively looked at search data for the 30 days prior to tax day each year (typically on April 15 or the following business day after it). 

Each state was given a numerical value on a scale of 1-100 relative to the number of tax-related searches in proportion to the size of their population. A higher number (e.g. 100) was given to states with lots of searches relative to the size of their population. Conversely, little tax-related search traffic per person was given a lower number (e.g. 10).

One note: We’re compiling this data prior to Tax Day in 2023, so we looked at the past 30 days from our date of data collection (April 10). Here’s what we found:

Alaskans Need Help

We’re only reading the numbers here, but something’s gone wrong in Alaska over the last few years. In 2019, they were one of four states to rank 0 on the list for any of the five years we researched (Montana and Vermont in 2019; Wyoming in 2020 were the others). No big deal, right? Maybe they were on top of things, no need to Google. 

However, Alaska had a score of 51 in 2020, 88 in 2021, and led the country in Google searches in both 2022 and 2023. Acceptance is the first step, and it appears the Alaskan natives got the memo loud and clear after sitting out in 2019. Maybe they had some big wins at the best online casinos.

Easy Tax Season With No Income Tax

Nine states have no state income taxes (Alaska, Florida, Nevada, New Hampshire, South Dakota, Texas, Washington, and Wyoming), so congratulations if you live in one of those nine states because of A) your additional wealth and B) your easier tax season. 

Granted, residents of those states are still U.S. citizens and therefore need to pay federal income taxes, but our data shows that these people feel less stressed. Here’s where each of these nine states averaged out in our Tax Day search rankings:

• Alaska: 8th
• Florida: 45th
• Nevada: 39th
• New Hampshire: 20th
• South Dakota: 24th
• Texas: 40th
• Washington: 16th
• Wyoming: 35th

Just one state in the top-10 (Alaska, see above), and five of the nine ranking outside the top-20. And remember, Alaska ranked 8th but was also one state that ranked 0 in 2019.

Rich States Search 'Tax' More

We looked at U.S. News’ 10 richest states in the country for 2023 and compared the list to how often they’re searching about tax day. Here’s what we found:

1. Maryland (19th most searches)
2. Massachusetts (12th)
3. New Jersey (42nd)
4. New Hampshire (20th)
5. California (14th)
6. Hawaii (9th)
7. Washington (16th)
8. Connecticut (31st)
9. Colorado (3rd)
10. Virginia (6th)

Three of the wealthiest states found themselves in our tax worries top-10 and six in our top-20. That feels like a serious correlation to us. More wealth = more tax searches.

While we’re here, the 10 states with the highest poverty rates are below—with their tax-day searches in parentheses: 

1. Mississippi (51st most searches - last)
2. Louisiana (49th)
3. New Mexico (34th)
4. Kentucky (47th)
5. Arkansas (32nd)
6. West Virginia (21st)
7. Alabama (48th)
8. Oklahoma (36th)
9. Tennessee (44th)
10. South Carolina (46th)

Of the 10 states with the highest poverty rate in the country, six were in the bottom seven of total tax searches per person. In total, the 10 richest states averaged 17.2 (out of 51) on our list, while the 10 poorest states averaged 40.8 (out of 51) in rank.

Note: It is out of 51 because we looked at data for the 50 states, plus Washington D.C.