Lake Tahoe Real Estate. Nevada Ranks 5 For Best State for Businessby Bonnie 
An annual survey by Chief Executive had more than 600 CEO rate states based on a wide range of criteria range from taxation to regulation to workforce quality and living environment. Texas was given top honors, followed by North Carolina, Tennessee and Virginia. The worst state to do business was California, followed by New York, Michigan, New Jersey, and Massachusetts. Each state was rated according to three general categories; taxation and regulation, quality of workforce, and living environment, where the business leaders were asked to draw upon their direct experience. Each category had five subcategories, including a ranking on each in terms of its importance to the respondent and how individual states measure up. For instance, Texas fares competitively well with Nevada and Delaware in terms of taxation and regulatory environment, but score best overall because of the perception that its attitude toward business is ideal. North Carolina edged Texas slightly in its living environment. On the other hand, it scored lower than Texas in terms of government attitude toward business and work ethic. The survey showed that after employee work ethic, the CEOs valued lower tax rated and perceived attitudes toward business most, followed by living environment considerations, including real estate costs and education. One CEO commented, “Texas is pro-business with reasonable regulations, while California is anti-business with anti-business regulations.” Another remarked, “California is terrible. Even when we’ve paid their high taxes in full, they still treat every conversation as adversarial. It’s the most difficult state in the nation. We have actually walked away from business rather than deal with the government in Sacramento.” “The leadership of California has done everything in its power to kill manufacturing jobs in this state, stated another CEO. “As stated at our annual meeting, if we could grow our crops in Reno, we’d move our plants tomorrow.” The highest income and sales taxes in that nation are paid by Californians. Unemployment in the state is 12.2 percent, higher than the national average. Rather than expanding a shrinking pie, state politics seem to be consumed with how to divide it. There’s more political influence of organized labor than most other state. In contrast to national trend, union density percentages are climbing in California. What’s more, unfunded pension and health care for state workers top $500 billion and the annual pension contribution has climbed from $320 million to $7.3 billion in less than a decade. With state employees reaching such a huge numbers, they tend to become a permanent lobby for continual growth in government. CEO Bill Normandy of San Francisco medical device maker ITC summed it up, “California has a good living environment but is unfavorable to business and the state taxes are not survivable. Nevada and Virginia are encouraging business to move to their states with lower tax rates and less regulatory demands.” 
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