April 28, 2024

Economix Blog: State Taxes Rise Across the U.S.

State tax revenues rose last quarter compared with a year earlier, according to preliminary data from the Rockefeller Institute of Government at the State University at Albany. This was the seventh straight quarter of growth, and is happy news for states struggling with budget shortfalls in the wake of the Great Recession.

CATHERINE RAMPELL

CATHERINE RAMPELL

Dollars to doughnuts.

Total state revenues were up 7.3 percent from their level during the same period last year. The biggest gains were in personal income tax revenue, which rose 9.2 percent year over year.

The Rockefeller Institute collected tax data from 48 early-reporting states, and found that all but three reported total revenue increases.

North Dakota had far and away the fastest growth in percentage terms, with tax revenue there rising 157 percent compared with a year earlier. Alaska had the second-fastest growth, at 124.4 percent. Both benefited significantly from higher oil and mineral prices, which drove up severance tax revenues.

At the other end of the spectrum was Delaware, where total tax revenues fell by 13.8 percent year over year.

Click the interactive map above to see how each state fared, and choose from the pull-down menu to see which categories of taxes fluctuated most. States that are blank either did not collect a given category of taxes (e.g., Florida doesn’t have a personal income tax) or have not yet reported their numbers. (If you have trouble getting the chart to load, you can see the full data table in the Rockefeller Institute report.)

Article source: http://feeds.nytimes.com/click.phdo?i=a2a326eb5d40676a664ff3c86a6f52b8