UNDATED -- Chief Executive Magazine has named Minnesota the tenth worst state for business.

The survey of more than 700 business leaders nationwide gave Minnesota high marks for quality of life, noting Minnesota enjoys the second-best quality of life and an unemployment rate of 3.5%.

However, the report says Minnesota is 46th on the Tax Foundation’s State Business Tax Climate Index ranking and the top corporate income tax rate is 9.8%

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Doug Loon, President of the Minnesota Chamber of Commerce says the high tax sends a message to businesses looking to relocate to Minnesota.

We refer to these as the billboard rates. These are all things that businesses evaluate when they're going to be considering where they're going to build and grow their business. When it's a billboard, it's sending a signal that we're not necessarily friendly to business. I would argue we are friendly to business, but we've got to make sure that we are not on the billboard saying  “don't come to Minnesota; don't grow your business in Minnesota”. Minnesota is a great place to be in business. We have this amazing capability here to grow businesses. But we got to be make sure that we're competitive at the same time.

Texas was ranked the best state for business. Indiana was named the best state in the Midwest. California was ranked last, followed by New York, Illinois, New Jersey and Washington.

Loon says the MN Chamber of Commerce is working with the legislature to streamline tax and regulatory procedures.

We take approaches at the capitol to make sure that our tax climate is as competitive as possible, as well as the regulatory climate. We work within the state agencies to ease those systems so that they can be more transparent, more predicted.

According to Chief Executive Magazine, 18 Fortune 500 companies are headquartered in Minnesota, including target, best Buy, 3M and General Mills.

 

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