New paper on federal taxes by city, county and U.S. congressional district
I’ve got a new paper out today that’s a fun stroll through the geographic landscape of federal tax burdens throughout the nation. Here’s the summary:
Executive Summary
In 2004 the federal government in Washington spent $2.18 trillion, roughly one-fifth of the U.S. economy. To finance that spending, it collected $1.91 trillion from taxpayers across the United States. However, the burden of those federal taxes did not fall equally on the cities, counties and states that comprise the diverse geographic landscape of the United States.
Some areas of the nation bear a heavy tax burden, while others pay comparatively little. Many previous Tax Foundation studies have estimated federal tax burdens at the state level, but none has provided detailed estimates down to the narrow geographic areas that taxpayers most closely identify themselves with, such as counties, cities and congressional voting districts.
This report presents the Tax Foundation’s most detailed portrait of the geographic spread of the federal tax burden to date. It provides estimates of all federal taxes—individual income taxes, corporate income taxes, payroll taxes, estate taxes and all federal excise taxes—by major city area, county, congressional district and state, illustrating the striking diversity of impact that federal tax policies established by Congress have on communities across the United States.
Full paper is here. For those who want the technical methodology behind the numbers, the working paper is here.
Posted by Andrew on Thursday March 22, 2007 | Feedback?
