With summer ending, the 2014 elections are starting to heat up. And as usual tax policy is a hot button issue as candidates for Governor, state legislatures and other state and local offices from both parties claim their plan is more “fair.” But what does a fair tax system look like? Which states actually have the most fair tax systems?

As a follow up to our 2014 Tax Fairness Survey which focused largely on federal tax policy, WalletHub has analyzed and ranked the 50 states based on the fairness of their state and local tax systems — including income taxes, sales & excise taxes, and property taxes. To rank the states, Wallethub conducted a nationally representative online survey of 1,050 individuals to assess what Americans think a fair state and local tax system looks like. Our analysts then compared what Americans think is fair to data on the real structure of tax systems in all 50 states.

We believe this is the first ever ranking of state and local tax fairness that matches representative data on what Americans think is fair with real data on the structure of state and local tax systems.

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Our second-annual ranking of the best small to mid-sized cities in the U.S.

 As Livability’s editors and writers crisscross the U.S in search of great stories, we find that time and again, the best tales are told in the Main Street diners, corner churches, park benches and even the mayor’s offices of small to mid-sized cites and towns. Far from letting time pass them by, these communities are doubling down on livability for their residents. Our second-annual ranking of the Top 100 Best Places to Live celebrates the work they are doing. As with our Top 100 Best Place to Live 2014 ranking, we worked with globally-known partners to analyze the best public and private data sources. We were advised by the leading thinkers, writers and doers in the place-making space. Some new places make the list, some move up or down and some continue to score well, no matter what the metric. More than 2,000 cities were ranked, so every city on this list is in the top 5 percent of livable communities in the U.S. Spend some time getting to know them, and when it comes time for your next move, maybe you'll think small.

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Jenna Caplette migrated from California to Montana in the early 1970s, first living on the Crow Indian reservation, then moving to Bozeman where she owned a downtown retail anchor for eighteen years. These days she owns Bozeman BodyTalk & Energetic Healthcare, hosts a monthly movie night, teaches and writes about many topics.

Great photo opportunities arrive when they arrive.  Here are some tips to help you to be prepared. 

First, create a camera first-aid kit with zip lock bags, a ground cloth of some kind, a light pair of running or BMX gloves, and a microfiber towel. 

• Storing things in zip lock bags helps keep them dry. 
• A ground cloth comes in handy to spread out gear and locate essential accessories or to dry something off. 
• Gloves with rubber grips prevent the “whoops” of dropping something in to a snowdrift. If you do drop something – your camera, a lens – immediately dry it off with the microfiber towel and you may save it from water damage, or outright ruin.  
• A microfiber lens cleaning cloth along with a cleaner, like Purosol Optical Molecular Lens Cleaners. 
• A packet of Rainsleeves™ to keep your camera dry if it begins to snow, or rain. These even work when you’re using a tripod.

Then, keep your camera loaded with fresh batteries and a couple freshly formatted memory card. 

• Cold saps batteries — put them in a pocket, next to your body, to keep them warm. Have extras on hand.
• To protect your camera and card reader, a clean and dry memory card is essential. 

One more essential suggestion for your gear: add a polarizer. It’s lightweight, minimizes snow glare and makes clear winter skies pop. On a digital camera, you can also accomplish this by simply changing the camera's white balance to “cloudy” or “shady”. You may also want to add a high quality UV filter to protect your lens from the weather and to reduce excessive blue at high elevations.

Take a lot of images and check each on your LCD screen in the field to be sure you got the shot you wanted.  Then at the end of the day, protect your images by transferring them from your camera's flash memory to a computer and backing them up to an external drive at the end of each day.

Kyle Ploehn is an artist, illustrator and writer living in Billings Montana. He likes to spend the few hours he isn't painting hiking the mountains of Montana.

Continuing with the scratchboard style, I moved on to painting Blue Herons. In the mountains where my family has a cabin there is a great creek that runs all down the valley. One of my favorite things to do is hike along the creek and sketch or photograph what wildlife I come across. A variety of big birds have found home there and on lucky days I get to see them. Most commonly, I have seen this family of great big majestic sandhill cranes, but one midmorning hike I saw a bird I further down the creek that was big like the sandhills, but a striking gray-blue standing gracefully among the tangled bushes. I watched the blue heron for a while, and he watched me, then without warning he took to the sky and flew down the creek. I was so excited, as soon as I returned to my studio I laid out this painting and got to work.

 The original is still available, an 20x20, framed for $700.

 14x14 canvas prints are available for $150 and 12x12 unmatted prints are available for $45. Contact me at [email protected], if you're interested in purchasing a print. Or stop by my website at http://kyleploehnart.com

Carroll College, for the fourth straight year, ranked as the No. 1 Regional College in the West, according to the prestigious U.S. News & World Report Best Colleges 2015 rankings.

Carroll also earned a No. 2 rank for Best Value College in the West.

U.S. News & World Report has released its Best Colleges rankings for 30 years, according to its chief data strategist Robert J. Morse. “It’s probably the most influential U.S. ranking of colleges.

“We’re the oldest, biggest and get the most views,” he said, referring to their website page views.

The rankings are a valuable tool for prospective students to more easily compare the quality of similar academic institutions. They evaluate 1,600 accredited four-year colleges on 16 indicators of academic excellence, including peer assessment, graduation and student retention rates, faculty resources, student selectivity, financial resources and alumni giving.

“It’s really remarkable,” said Carroll President Tom Evans of Carroll’s ranking. “It speaks very well to what we are doing.”

“I think the retention rate is very important,” said Evans. “I think retention rate is really important for academic rigor. It’s kind of a happiness quotient of our students -- it’s a measure of our success.”

Carroll held the top spot for Regional Colleges in the West with its 82 percent average Freshman Retention Rate.

MORE>>>Helen Independent Record

Residents here are being asked to stop feeding a flock of wild turkeys that has decided the living is easier in town.

A news release issued Friday by the Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks, officials said some residents are feeding a flock of turkeys, creating an "unnatural, unhealthy concentration of turkeys in town."

State wildlife and city officials, including the mayor and police chief, are also reminding Red Lodge residents that fines for feeding the birds could be up to $300.

The consequences of continuing to feed the birds "include a flock of turkeys that is dependant on unnatural food sources, possible avian diseases resulting from the unnatural concentration, bird droppings in places frequented by residents and pets, and possible attraction of bears, deer, lions and unintended wildlife," the press release states.

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