RANKING THE STATES BY FISCAL CONDITION, 2017 Edition. Happy to see Tennessee doing well. Sad to see Kentucky in the bottom 5. Funny, when Tennessee was thinking of adopting an income tax — or, more accurately, when Tennessee’s political class was trying unsuccessfully to foist an income tax on the populace — we heard how Kentucky was in a better place because it had an income tax and didn’t depend on sales tax so much. Oops.