Where Each U.S. State Gets Its Tax Revenue From

(visualcapitalist.com)

50 points | by peter_d_sherman 2 hours ago

11 comments

  • delichon 17 minutes ago

    Alaska gets a huge portion of its revenue from taxes on extracting oil and gas. This is a model that any state could use on data centers extracting compute from local resources. And if demand for compute is actually heading up the Kardashev scale, it could eventually fund the whole state and subsidize resident incomes. It would act as a hedge against possible disruptions of AI.

    • estearum 9 minutes ago

      Land Value Tax does this with effectively zero enforcement complexity and across all forms of communal wealth creation (which ultimately gets baked into land values).

    • They need to show distribution of federal funds because it is not fairly allocated.

      • gwerbin 21 minutes ago

        This is about tax revenue, not overall stock of usable funds.

    • y-c-o-m-b 13 minutes ago

      11% corporate income tax in Idaho surprised me, given how heavily conservative they tend to vote.

      • boguscoder 18 minutes ago

        Clicking “use this visualization” gives you image version that doesn’t cause seizures

        • hbarka 54 minutes ago

          Interesting as a percentage but convert the axis to actual dollars for the real story.

          • abeppu 48 minutes ago

            But that would just show you some states are much bigger than others? I think per capita dollars, or normalized to that state's median income would be more informative.

          • beembeem 1 hour ago

            A few observations (these are all on a relative basis, as the chart shows):

            - NH gets nearly 2/3 of its revenue from property taxes

            - OR raises more of its revenue than CA in income tax

            - TN/AZ are a close 2nd/3rd to WA in sales tax revenue

            • PyWoody 53 minutes ago

                - NH gets nearly 2/3 of its revenue from property taxes
              
              No sales or income tax will get you that. I sold my house and went back to renting because my town doubled my already ludicrously high property taxes.
              • apercu 22 minutes ago

                Won't you still be (indirectly) paying property tax, as your landlord needs to recoup?

                • throwup238 18 minutes ago

                  Yes but you can get below market rents from owners who don’t have a mortgage to pay.

            • somat 59 minutes ago

              I suspect "other" is mining or equivalent natural exploitation(oil)

              And pet peeve, personal income tax and corporate income tax are almost the same thing. With few exceptions the individual person does not pay their income tax, the corporation does, and for those exceptions the individual is the corporation. Income tax is really a sales tax on a corporation biggest expense, it's payroll.

              • yuliyp 43 minutes ago

                Corporate income tax is a very different thing from an employer withholding wages. Withholding is still considered the individual paying the tax, just they never get to hold the money. Corporate income tax is money the corporation pays based on its own income vs expenses.

                • throwup238 20 minutes ago

                  You can also just go to your employer’s HR software and change withholding to 0% everywhere I’ve worked, giving you a bigger paycheck but moving the burden of paying the IRS on you.

                  • what 12 minutes ago

                    You still need to do the withholding or pay a penalty at tax time. I suppose you can pay quarterly instead of biweekly (or whatever), but is it worth it?

              • dorianmariecom 1 hour ago

                that website is cancer, just for an image

                • dh2022 1 hour ago

                  That is why I read the HN comments before going to the site :). Thanks!

                  • mindtricks 1 hour ago

                    It is called the visual "capitalist" for a reason it seems.

                  • logankeenan 51 minutes ago

                    A good portion of revenue is from property taxes. A property tax is a wealth tax. I always find the discussion interesting around wealth taxes on billionaires equity when the average worker has typically always paid a wealth tax on their largest asset.

                    • didgetmaster 27 minutes ago

                      Property taxes are not wealth taxes. Two houses side-by-side with the same value, should have the same property tax assessed. One is owned outright. The other is mortgaged to the hilt and its 'owner' has very little wealth from it.

                      • jayd16 16 minutes ago

                        I wonder if we should pass a law where borrowing against an asset is a taxable event.

                        At least it closes the loop hole where you borrow against your stock and never pay taxes on it because you never sold it.

                      • mrkiouak 43 minutes ago

                        A property tax is not a wealth tax, in any common meaning of 'wealth tax'. It's a property tax. The majority of people with real wealth own assets outside of property that they derive income from. Notably, the vast majority of people own property they do not derive income from, e.g. their homes.j

                        A tax on a home not deriving income does not fit any normal person's definition of a wealth tax.

                        • tekla 40 minutes ago

                          What? Property taxes are definitionally a wealth tax. It's also probably the most efficient/best one. It's also part of the common meaning of the wealth tax because its the one that most people experience.

                          https://projectionlab.com/financial-terms/wealth-tax

                          • Sparkle-san 19 minutes ago

                            The tax is the same regardless of the equity or "wealth". I can be underwater on my mortgage with a negative net-worth and still owe the same property taxes on someone with a comparable house and $2 million in the bank.

                      • devmor 1 hour ago

                        I wonder if Delaware's massively oversized license tax portion is simply because so many companies incorporate there.

                        • flowerlad 1 hour ago

                          Here's a website that would have been significantly better if it had been written using AI. HN readers complain about "AI slop" but I would prefer AI slop over this site. Folks, if you are not motivated to make a decent page, please use AI.

                          • somat 52 minutes ago

                            Just curious, because it looks fine to me(ad blocker?), but there were other comments saying how terrible it is, what is wrong with it?

                            Header large image, small pointless article, see also navigation. Sure nothing exceptional, but also, nothing offensive, looks like every other "news site" I have seen.

                            • olsondv 23 minutes ago

                              Turn off your adblocker and experience auto-playing and unmuted video ad popups that cover most of the display.