Hi Jim,
My wife and I will be moving to Montana in the near future. While researching a location for our future home, we found the following links to be especially helpful for state tax and cost-of-living comparisons.
Overall Tax Burden by State
State Sales Tax Rates [2]
Cost of Living Comparison
Sincerely, – Jeff H.
JWR Replies: Thanks for sending those very useful links. I just added them to my Retreat Areas web page [3].