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by ChuckMcM 834 days ago
You may find this web site enlightening, I certainly did (https://taxfoundation.org/data/all/state/tax-burden-by-state...) This paragraph in particular for me

Since we present tax burdens as a share of income as a relative ranking of the 50 states, slight changes in taxes or income can translate into seemingly dramatic shifts in rank. For example, Oklahoma (10th) and Ohio (24th) only differ in burden by just over one percentage point. Tax revenue growth during the pandemic, however, has not only increased overall tax burdens but also expanded variance among states. In our last pre-pandemic analysis, the 20 middle-ranked states differed by less than a percentage point on effective rate, but in 2022, the difference between New Hampshire (16th) and Maryland (35th) is 1.8 percentage points. While burdens are clustered in the center of the distribution, states at the top and bottom can have substantially different burden percentages: the state with the highest burden, New York, has a burden percentage of 15.9 percent, while the state with the lowest burden, Alaska, has a burden percentage of 4.6 percent.
1 comments
TMWNN 834 days ago
What a great data resource. Thank you for sharing it. That spread between CA/NY and TX/FL really puts things into perspective.

And before someone else rushes in with "Oh yeah, California subsidizes all the hillbillies in the red states!": No, that is not true. Only CT, NJ, and MA's citizens on average paid more federal taxes during 2015-2021 than they received back from Washington. <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38839499>

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davoneus 834 days ago
Typical; someone with only half of a story pushing an agenda. You can look at the data yourself(*) No state pays more outright than California. Followed closely by NY, Mass, Ct, NJ. Look at per-capita income, and California is receives less than 44 other states. Lets see how does that compare some of those "red" states?MS(#8), Al(#7), La(#11), Ar(#15), Ky(#2), SC(#13), Tn(#16), Wv (#5), Oh(#21), Tx(#36), Mt(#19), NC(#20)?

Don't know about you, but the data sure tells another story doesn't it? I damn well don't live in CA (midwest), but don't believe anything on the 'net until you verify it yourself. Too many people pushing an agenda.

(*) https://rockinst.org/issue-areas/fiscal-analysis/balance-of-...

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TMWNN 834 days ago
I love how you cited the Rockefeller Institute's URL, as if you're the first one to do so; the whole point of my pointing people to the Rockefeller data was so they could see for themselves. I also can't believe that you actually said "No state pays more outright than California"; anything else would be a surprise given how large the state's population is.

In any case, as I said in my previously cited comment, what matters is the net per capita amount, the difference between how much a state's citizens[1] pay to Washington versus how much they and their state get back from Washington. Californians overall benefited more from federal spending than they paid in federal taxes over the years I cited, just like every other state except three. That's not exactly the "California subsidizes all the hillbillies in the red states" mantra that is so often repeated online.

[1] Not the state itself, which does not pay a cent to Washington.

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