The two spreadsheets attached to this post have data on state and local taxes, as provided by the Governments Division of the U.S. Census Bureau. The “all state and county” spreadsheet has FY 2007 data for the U.S., each state, every county in New York State, and different areas of the state aggregated together. State taxes and local taxes, and major tax types, are identified separately. It prints as a four-page table. The “all years” spreadsheet has data on the total state and local tax burden for the U.S., New York City, the rest of New York State, New Jersey, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Illinois, California, Texas and North Carolina. The data is for FY 1972, and FY 1977 to FY 2008 excluding years when Census Bureau budget cuts meant no data was collected (FY 2001 and FY2003).

Per capita state and local tax data is sometimes used to identify Massachusetts, New Jersey and California as “high tax” states. But this ignores the higher average incomes in those states, and thus the higher cost of living, the greater ability to pay taxes, and the need to pay public employees more if they are to be paid as much as their neighbors doing similar work. This data presents taxes as a share of the personal income of U.S., state and area residents (as provided by the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis), and thus adjusts for the ability to pay and the cost of living. When the data is presented this way, two facts stand out. In reality New York is the only true “high tax” state. And deferring taxes, by running up debts, not funding pensions, and not maintaining infrastructure, is not the same as cutting them.