Gyroscopic Investing

[quote=http://taxfoundation.org/blog/how-much- ... xes-capita]Tax collections per capita is not a measure of tax burdens per se. (We look at tax burdens separately.) In a state with high per capita incomes, a higher per capita tax burden may work out to similar burden as a percentage of income as experienced in a state that is less well off. It does, however, offer us a window on the cost of government in any given state. If we think of each resident as a consumer of state services, per capita tax collections gives us the per person cost. Individual taxpayer liability will, of course, vary—especially if the state can export its collections.[/quote]

[img width=800]http://taxfoundation.org/sites/taxfound ... ita-01.png[/img]

We're Number Fifty!!  We're Number Fifty!!

I have grown to love my home state of New Hampshire more in the past couple years.  This map just contributes to those warm feelings.

Wow, the median seems to be to be in the mid-2000s, but MN is out of control. What's the population density? North Dakota has a lot of land to deal with but a small population so I kind of get- but, South Dakota looks cheap. What's going on here? Saving up for a Canadian invasion? 

Neat website!  Very depressing for those of us in NY area though...

http://taxfoundation.org/article/new-yo ... tax-burden

Just to be clear, the map above includes all state and local taxes - income, sales, and property.

The question now is...what are the high tax states doing with the money??  I know what happens to it in NY (massive, massive bureaucracy and corruption), but presumably that doesn't apply everywhere.  Maybe they're building statues made of dollar bills?

WiseOne wrote: The question now is...what are the high tax states doing with the money??  I know what happens to it in NY (massive, massive bureaucracy and corruption), but presumably that doesn't apply everywhere.  Maybe they're building statues made of dollar bills?

It's not mostly spent on all the undocumented-illegal-alien immigrants?

I don't think a per capita basis makes sense if some states have smaller populations than others?

Largely pensions and debt service, I expect. High taxes and poor services, that's the name of the game.

MachineGhost wrote:

WiseOne wrote: The question now is...what are the high tax states doing with the money??  I know what happens to it in NY (massive, massive bureaucracy and corruption), but presumably that doesn't apply everywhere.  Maybe they're building statues made of dollar bills?

It's not mostly spent on all the undocumented-illegal-alien immigrants?

I was going to say to WiseOne: if there's anything left over, give it to the self-entitled Dominicans that show up to demand free health care. 

dualstow wrote: Wow, the median seems to be to be in the mid-2000s, but MN is out of control. What's the population density? North Dakota has a lot of land to deal with but a small population so I kind of get- but, South Dakota looks cheap. What's going on here? Saving up for a Canadian invasion? 

North Dakota's high tax collection has to do with the Bakken oil boom, I presume.

Also, I seriously doubt that the high numbers here have to do with "undocumented illegal aliens."

TennPaGa wrote: ...
Also, don't forget that the map shows taxes collected per capita, but not tax burden per capita.  That is, taxes are not necessarily collected from the residents of the state:

North Dakota ranks first with $7,438 per capita, and Alaska is second-highest with per capita collections of $7,005. North Dakotans and Alaskans, however, are only paying a small share of that burden. Since so much of these states’ tax revenue comes from severance taxes, the economic incidence of North Dakota and Alaska taxes is borne, in significant part, by consumers of petroleum and natural gas products across the country. What we can see, however, is that these states raise an anomalously large amount of tax revenue per person. At the other extreme, New Hampshire only raises $1,777 per capita.

Interesting, so ND's number does have something to do with the oil, as edsanville said.

dualstow wrote:

MachineGhost wrote:

WiseOne wrote: The question now is...what are the high tax states doing with the money??  I know what happens to it in NY (massive, massive bureaucracy and corruption), but presumably that doesn't apply everywhere.  Maybe they're building statues made of dollar bills?

It's not mostly spent on all the undocumented-illegal-alien immigrants?

I was going to say to WiseOne: if there's anything left over, give it to the self-entitled Dominicans that show up to demand free health care. 

I'm sure that's a big chunk of it, but there are plenty of states with similarly high populations of Latin American imports (legal or illegal), but with lower tax collections, like the Southwestern states.  Of course, if you're like California and you are scrambling to give them free schooling health care, college tuition, and other state services, that could certainly explain a lot of the costs.  Here in NY, you can walk into a Medicaid funded teaching hospital clinic (which I'm going to be doing this afternoon, in fact) and see that it's pretty much 100% Dominicans both working at the front desk and sitting in the waiting area.  It's almost eerie.

BTW:  mea culpa, yes this is state level tax collections only.  I read about the combined taxes elsewhere on the site.

S&L taxes tend to stay in-state, so I find all that a lot less interesting than this...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_t ... g_by_state

I almost don't believe the numbers.  For instance, Federal spending in North Dakota was 103% of GDP ($67k per capita) in 2014?  That is tough to believe.  The numbers seem to tie out overall, though.