Nebraska is no longer one of the top two states in the country for wireless phone taxes.
According to a report released Tuesday morning by the Tax Foundation, Nebraska had the fourth-highest wireless phone tax burden in 2018, ranking behind Illinois, Alaska and Washington.
Nebraska was No. 1 from 2007-2013 and No. 2 from 2014 to last year in the annual ranking.
The decline did not come because of a drop in taxes in the state, as Nebraska's combined federal, state and local tax burden of 25.48 percent this year is actually the highest its been since at least 2006.
Illinois and Alaska both saw large increases in their state and local tax burdens, which bumped them into the top two spots.
The Tax Foundation, which bills itself as nonpartisan but takes almost exclusively conservative positions on taxes, noted in the report that the overall average national wireless tax rate rose to 19.1 percent this year, the highest it's ever been.
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The group's methodology has been criticized in the past by Nebraska officials because it figures in business occupation taxes charged by Omaha (6.25 percent) and Lincoln (6 percent). A few other cities also charge occupation taxes, but the vast majority of cities do not.
That means about 60 percent of the state's population pays less than the 25.48 percent rate used by the Tax Foundation, and some people pay considerably less.
For example, a Nebraskan living in a city with no occupation tax and no local sales tax pays 17.7 percent in cellphone taxes, a rate that would rank 28th highest among the states.
To see the report, go to