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Where each U.S. state gets its tax revenue from(visualcapitalist.com)

73 points by peter_d_sherman 1 day ago | 86 comments

Alaska gets a huge portion of its revenue from taxes on extracting oil and gas. This is a model that any state could apply to data centers extracting compute from local resources. And if demand for compute is actually heading up the Kardashev scale, it could eventually fund the whole state and subsidize resident incomes. It would act as a hedge against possible disruptions by AI.

[–] estearum 1 day ago

Land Value Tax does this with effectively zero enforcement complexity and across all forms of communal wealth creation (which ultimately gets baked into land values).

[–] barumrho 1 day ago

Could you explain this? I thought the idea of Land Value Tax was that the value of land gets taxed regardless of how much value is generated by use of that land. (e.g. a vacant lot is taxed the same as a lot with rental properties built on top given everything else equal.)

[–] bryanlarsen 1 day ago

Data centers use small amounts of cheap land.

[–] s1artibartfast 1 day ago

No it doesn't. Land tax doesn't target data centers, which usually want cheap land.

Further, when land taxes are passed down, they focus of physical goods and ignores IP and contract value. This means they are more flatly distributed throughout the population.

Third, many high return activities require almost no land. A stock trader or bank might make millions with the nanowatt of natural resources needed to flip a bit in a database. A plumber might need a lot of natural resources to fix your toilet

[–] HDThoreaun 1 day ago

End of the day big tech would find a friendly government to work with before paying massive data center taxes. The fossil fuel extraction taxes work because the fossil fuels are literally in the state. If you want them you gotta work with the states government. Data centers dont have nearly the same physical restrictions

[–] labcomputer 1 day ago

The other reason fossil fuel extraction taxes work so well is because you're effectively taxing the residents of other states. The people who bear the impact of the taxes don't get to vote on the taxes.

[–] smallmancontrov 1 day ago

"Datacenters" is needlessly narrow -- as capital eats the world, we need to tax capital. Simple as.

We already tax houses, and by comparison stocks are more liquid than a firehose and easier to value than a $2 bill. There is no excuse.

As I have grown my small business, I have come to an appreciation for how comically lopsided the tax code is to push all of the taxes out of the invest/return economy and into the work/consume economy. It's really quite something. Anything to avoid the right side of the Kuznets Curve!

[–] jawns 1 day ago

I'm a Delawarean, and I have done research and reporting about the state's unique role in corporate America.

You may wonder why two-thirds of the Fortune 500 are incorporated in Delaware. Is it because the cost of incorporation is lower than in other states, or because corporate tax rates are lower? Those are factors, but they are not the primary reason. The primary reason is risk avoidance, and in particular legal risk avoidance.

Delaware benefits from a flywheel effect: Because so many companies are incorporated in the state, its Chancery Court has a more developed set of case law than other states, and so outcomes of lawsuits involving corporations are more predictable -- which makes it an even more attractive place to incorporate, which continues the flywheel effect.

The down side is that the state is incredibly dependent on corporate licensing fees and escheatment. States like Nevada have, in recent years, been competing against Delaware as a corporate haven, and if we start to see a significant migration, we'll be in a real pickle, because the state imposes no sales tax and has relatively low property taxes.

[–] red-iron-pine 1 day ago

DE law is also, broadly speaking, favorable to corpos -- they didn't just go there because common law got hashed out. Plenty of other east coast states with long histories and lots of lawsuits.

but the parent poster is correct: it is unambiguous and well litigated in its benefits and downsides.

even if the benefits are only mild, it makes it easy to map out and control the legal risks.

[–] abtinf 1 day ago

Off topic: I’ve never seen a flywheel analogy that actually understands what a flywheel is. People love to use it to describe a forever growing thing, when it’s actually just a buffer.

[–] stackbutterflow 1 day ago

I was about to comment on this too. Isn't what the parent comment describes a virtuous circle?

A quick online search returns mostly business related articles so I guess it's some corporate analogy.

[–] NekkoDroid 1 day ago

> Isn't what the parent comment describes a virtuous circle?

I'd rather call it a positive feedback loop.

[–] antisthenes 1 day ago

In this case, the flywheel analogy only demonstrates is that there is low friction in the legal system aspect.

If we are talking about a flywheel as an energy storage, low friction is a key component of its ability to store energy as a buffer. If this was not the case, the flywheel would lose its energy quickly on its own and the buffer would be gone.

> People love to use it to describe a forever growing thing, when it’s actually just a buffer.

A thing has other characteristics other than its intended purpose. Your assumption that you need to use intended purpose for a successful analogy is false.

[–] abtinf 1 day ago

The parent was not making an argument about low friction.

[–] tylermk04 1 day ago

Ah yes, I too have noticed the "prevalence of flywheel-analogy-misuse" flywheel.

[–] kevin_thibedeau 1 day ago

They need to show distribution of federal funds because it is not fairly allocated.

[–] gwerbin 1 day ago

This is about tax revenue, not overall stock of usable funds.

[–] kevin_thibedeau 1 day ago

It's about the proportional distribution.

[–] red-iron-pine 1 day ago

this is about how states raise their own money, not how much money they have to spend, or on what. FeddyGov money is not part of this discussion.

[–] justindz 1 day ago

Florida passed their ballot initiative (https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/other/what-the-new-florida-h...) to begin exempting non-school portions of property tax (a bit over 1/3 of state revenue). This is a concern in my industry, which derives budgets primarily from property taxes. But, more generally: what is the plan for the revenue shortfall? Any Floridians have insight? Does FL not need this money, assume they will make it up in a sales tax because of increased disposable income, or they are just fine with the services based on this revenue getting rinsed?

[–] Den_VR 1 day ago

Its a homestead exemption. Folks just living in their homes will be under less pressure to sell. Folks renting out homes will continue to pay full tax. With the behavior of property valuations, this seems rather humane.

[–] justindz 1 day ago

My question was about the impact to state revenues and associated services. Are you suggesting that because it doesn't apply to "investment" homes, the actual impact to state coffers will be minimal?

Not being nitty, just didn't follow how your point connected and wanted to make sure I understood it.

[–] Den_VR 1 day ago

I suppose my point is mainly to look at the equation from the other side. Sure, “the market” might be more efficient if people without sufficient income, have to leave their houses that are high valued and that allows for more affluent people to live in those homes and pay more taxes.

But we might say it does not feel very humane

[–] Timon3 1 day ago

I didn't read GP as expressing any explicit judgement - it's a simple question of the political reality, no matter what position you take. If the state takes in fewer taxes, the shortfall must be balanced by some combination of:

- increases in other taxes/other income sources

- decreases in services

- public debt

As someone who shares your view that housing shouldn't be purely market-driven, IMO it's especially important to consider the other side of the equation, because some people invest a lot of time, effort and money to prevent the first option.

One "obvious" income source would be to hire more tax collectors and let them focus on the largest conglomerates, but not like that's ever gonna happen.

[–] hnburnsy 1 day ago

Doesn't affect the state just localaties like counties and cities.

[–] techlover14159 18 hours ago

This will push housing providers (landlords, especially those who own 1-4 unit properties, primarily mom and pops) to sell to those who want to live there.

This means the supply of 1-4 unit homes will go down over time for those who want to rent.

[–] HDThoreaun 1 day ago

Around 45% of FL property wealth is a homestead. Thats a huge amount of money the state will be leaving on the table. Just like prop 13 the magnitude of the tax breaks will grow and grow and grow until eventually newcomers are fucked and incumbents form a landed gentry. Florida will face a revenue crisis because of this but itll be a decade+ from now

[–] hnburnsy 1 day ago

Options are increase millage rate, increase user fees, spending cuts, state revenue sharing, and sales tax increase (limited and must be voter approved)

[–] hbarka 1 day ago

Interesting as a percentage but convert the axis to actual dollars for the real story.

[–] abeppu 1 day ago

But that would just show you some states are much bigger than others? I think per capita dollars, or normalized to that state's median income would be more informative.

[–] beembeem 1 day ago

A few observations (these are all on a relative basis, as the chart shows):

- NH gets nearly 2/3 of its revenue from property taxes

- OR raises more of its revenue than CA in income tax

- TN/AZ are a close 2nd/3rd to WA in sales tax revenue

[–] kristjansson 1 day ago

Well, yeah, OR doesn't have a general sales tax so it's proportionally more dependent on income tax. vice versa for WA, no personal income tax so depends more on sales tax.

This is an interesting chart, but it really is showing one policy dimension - choice of tax base.

[–] PyWoody 1 day ago

  - NH gets nearly 2/3 of its revenue from property taxes

No sales or income tax will get you that. I sold my house and went back to renting because my town doubled my already ludicrously high property taxes.

[–] apercu 1 day ago

Won't you still be (indirectly) paying property tax, as your landlord needs to recoup?

[–] throwup238 1 day ago

Yes but you can get below market rents from owners who don’t have a mortgage to pay.

[–] HDThoreaun 1 day ago

Landlords are price takers. They respond to the market by setting rent at the highest anyone will pay them. Of course they might decide to sell, but if they dont then they cant just raise rent whenever they face a supply shock.

[–] y-c-o-m-b 1 day ago

Oregon, where we get taxed to hell on both income and property yet still have decrepit infrastructure, declining publicly funded healthcare(OHA), and poor education.

[–] goatlover 1 day ago

Eastern or Western Oregon? Because there are big political, economic and geographical differences between the two.

[–] jolt42 1 day ago

The WA sales tax I suppose explains why a fast food burger requires a down payment.

[–] jolt42 1 day ago

although it seems the workers aren't relying on tips as their salary, which hopefully means you can actually tip when it makes sense to.

[–] jasomill 1 day ago

Interesting that federal funding isn't included in this comparison, given that a quick web search suggests[1] it comprises anywhere from 20%-40% of state revenues.

[1] https://reason.org/commentary/ranking-the-states-most-and-le...

[–] somat 1 day ago

I suspect "other" is mining or equivalent natural exploitation(oil)

And pet peeve, personal income tax and corporate income tax are almost the same thing. With few exceptions the individual person does not pay their income tax, the corporation does, and for those exceptions the individual is the corporation. Income tax is really a sales tax on a corporation biggest expense, it's payroll.

[–] yuliyp 1 day ago

Corporate income tax is a very different thing from an employer withholding wages. Withholding is still considered the individual paying the tax, just they never get to hold the money. Corporate income tax is money the corporation pays based on its own income vs expenses.

[–] throwup238 1 day ago

You can also just go to your employer’s HR software and change withholding to 0% everywhere I’ve worked, giving you a bigger paycheck but moving the burden of paying the IRS on you.

[–] what 1 day ago

You still need to do the withholding or pay a penalty at tax time. I suppose you can pay quarterly instead of biweekly (or whatever), but is it worth it?

[–] BobaFloutist 1 day ago

I guess if you have a credit card that gets enough points/cashback to offset the fee for paying with a credit card you could get a marginal benefit?

[–] y-c-o-m-b 1 day ago

11% corporate income tax in Idaho surprised me, given how heavily conservative they tend to vote.

[–] boguscoder 1 day ago

Clicking “use this visualization” gives you image version that doesn’t cause seizures

[–] hnburnsy 1 day ago

What is the New Mexico and North Dakota other source?

[–] dorianmariecom 1 day ago

that website is cancer, just for an image

[–] dh2022 1 day ago

That is why I read the HN comments before going to the site :). Thanks!

[–] zugi 1 day ago

Opening the page with uBlock Origin and NoScript, the image and article text show just fine.

Some sites these days won't show anything at all without Javascript, so I actually give the site kudos for working well with no Javascript.

Evidently Javascript causes cancer.

[–] mindtricks 1 day ago

It is called the visual "capitalist" for a reason it seems.

[–] logankeenan 1 day ago

A good portion of revenue is from property taxes. A property tax is a wealth tax. I always find the discussion interesting around wealth taxes on billionaires equity when the average worker has typically always paid a wealth tax on their largest asset.

[–] mrkiouak 1 day ago

A property tax is not a wealth tax, in any common meaning of 'wealth tax'. It's a property tax. The majority of people with real wealth own assets outside of property that they derive income from. Notably, the vast majority of people own property they do not derive income from, e.g. their homes.j

A tax on a home not deriving income does not fit any normal person's definition of a wealth tax.

[–] tekla 1 day ago

What? Property taxes are definitionally a wealth tax. It's also probably the most efficient/best one. It's also part of the common meaning of the wealth tax because its the one that most people experience.

https://projectionlab.com/financial-terms/wealth-tax

[–] hocusPokeUs 1 day ago

Yeah agreed; what they even saying?

People determined not wealthy enough to get a mortgage do not pay property taxes on a house they are not wealthy enough to own.

Those wealthy enough to own a house pay property taxes; ergo wealth tax.

Over the years different explanations were written down as legal justifications "why it's different than this other very similar scenario" but people of the past were just making something up to not look hypocritical; someone with the means is taxed more for the privilege is how it goes. Poor people don't pay taxes.

[–] wredcoll 1 day ago

> Poor people don't pay taxes.

Poor people (typically) don't pay income taxes.

This is why it's worth knowing the difference between progressive and regressive taxes.

[–] hocusPokeUs 1 day ago

You're doing that thing where you appeal to subtle complexity that doesn't exist as anything but a social trope; there is no real physical complexity to any of this; the complexity is all made up rhetorical gotchas.

It's like scaffolding out the Windows pipes screensaver in your head; endless bends and bends while no pipes actually exist. There is no spoon; it's just primates parroting the bird song they have been whistling since youth.

[–] wredcoll 1 day ago

What.

[–] Sparkle-san 1 day ago

The tax is the same regardless of the equity or "wealth". I can be underwater on my mortgage with a negative net-worth and still owe the same property taxes on someone with a comparable house and $2 million in the bank.

[–] labcomputer 1 day ago

The tax is levied on the amount of wealth you have stored in real property.

Many taxes have exemptions. You get a "personal exemption" on your income tax. You don't pay tax on 100% of social security income because of another exemption.

A "property tax" is a wealth tax that simply has exemptions for all of your wealth stored in stocks/bonds/anything-that-isn't-real-estate.

[–] Sparkle-san 1 day ago

> The tax is levied on the amount of wealth you have stored in real property.

It's not though, it's levied on the assessed value of the house regardless of the stored value. A fully paid off house and a mortgage a month old at 90% LTV have the same property taxes if they are assessed at the same price. It would have been disingenuous to tell everyone who was underwater on their mortgages after the housing collapse in 2008 that they had so much wealth in the their houses based on the fact that they still had to pay property taxes.

[–] hocusPokeUs 1 day ago

Yeah? And? You don't get a mortgage and pay the tax in the first place without being wealthy enough; poor people don't get to own a home and don't pay property tax (excepting for those in rentals who proportionally subsidize the payments the landlord makes).

It's fundamentally a tax on wealthier people among a community.

We really going to sit here in 2026 and pretend the people who wrote down all these rhetorical circumlocutions weren't just making up language to justify their supposed expertise/their social moat? The entire American system is rich families manipulating the legal system to screw have nots. Whole lot of have nots defend a system that doesn't care they exist.

Strip away the ornamental language of the law and just see the ground truth; a person with means to buy the house pays a tax on it all. A poor person never pays a tax because they never own a home.

What is this? Why does everyone feel like they stepped out of the middle ages where dark tongues still exist and the ornate incantations of superstitious people still rule?

It doesn't need to be logically as complicated and intentionally obscured (in my opinion legalese has been to manipulate the illiterate which were the majority back in the day).

Such social conservatism is holding society back.

[–] Sparkle-san 1 day ago

By your logic, everything is wealth tax. Bought a $5 item and paid sales tax on it that at least one person couldn't afford? Wealth tax! Got groceries while someone was going hungry? Wealth tax! And as you acknowledged, poor people are still paying property taxes, they're just baked into their rent. You're out here decrying "rhetorical circumlocutions" and "ornamental language" while ignoring the argument at hand and engaging in the same discourse you denounce.

[–] hocusPokeUs 1 day ago

Happy to end our chat as your flip flopping between "save the Byzantine but essential legal rhetoric that is the tax code" while complaining my 3-4 paragraph argument to reduce legal sprawl and assess via simpler terms is itself sprawling nonsense...that cognitive dissonance is confusing.

Like side by side my posts and tax code ... the tax code would look less verbose?

Legal obfuscation often conjured back in the day by local rich politicians and a judge who bbq on weekends, colluded to convince an innumerate illiterate local they best accept just being screwed by the local political feifdom...is somehow preferable to defining our own social norms; history makes it clear of course the people of the past had it all correct!

Functional illiteracy in the raw; no ability to reason outside the tropes of your childhood education.

Without a new JS framework or devops tool to babble about and leverage as a social moat in the job market this forum is no different than Reddit and X; incurious worker bees dancing like monkeys for coin jangling around grandpa billionaires pocket.

[–] didgetmaster 1 day ago

Property taxes are not wealth taxes. Two houses side-by-side with the same value, should have the same property tax assessed. One is owned outright. The other is mortgaged to the hilt and its 'owner' has very little wealth from it.

[–] jayd16 1 day ago

I wonder if we should pass a law where borrowing against an asset is a taxable event.

At least it closes the loop hole where you borrow against your stock and never pay taxes on it because you never sold it.

[–] what 1 day ago

I don’t understand this “loop hole”, who is giving loans that don’t have to be repaid? Surely the collateral will be sold eventually to repay the loan and service the interest?

[–] aidenn0 1 day ago

If you are a good customer of the bank and the LTV of the collateral is very low, then you will get a very low interest rate. If the collateral pays dividends (which are also taxed at a lower rate than ordinary income), then the dividends can service the interest. Meanwhile capital gains keep accumulating tax-free.

[–] HDThoreaun 1 day ago

With post covid interest rates this strategy very rarely makes sense. Even people like zuck getting fully collateralized loans against their stock will still have to pay close to 5%. There are certainly circumstances where it makes sense to take a 5% loan, but they are few. It does not make sense to just roll loans over forever anymore. Thats why all the big tech stocks pay dividends now. Founders dont want to sell and they dont want to take loans.

Buy borrow die also leads to massive estate taxes which is why billionaires use trusts instead. Buy borrow die is best for people with around $50 mil in assets because they dont have any estate tax.

[–] quickthrowman 1 day ago

Refinance the loan with another loan or just use a revolving credit account with no fixed term.

If your stock holdings are growing faster than inflation and the interest rate at which you are borrowing, it’s an easy way to monetize unrealized gains without a taxable event. If you have a huge stock portfolio, brokers will lend you money against your stock at very low rates, a few bps above what Treasuries yield. If you have $4B of stock they might let you borrow $1B for what would be ~4-4.5% using that stock as collateral. You can theoretically take out a margin loan for up to 100% of the stock held in an account, but that’s risky due to margin calls.

The idea is to let the cost basis step up to the price of the asset at your death which will eliminate the capital gains that would’ve been owed. Then your heirs sell a portion of the stock to pay off the loan and keep the rest.

[–] tekla 1 day ago

You know, every time this is brought up, a small part of me dies.

People bring up a loophole that does exist, and assume that everyone uses it. Welp, like most of these "1%" discourse, its pretty damn rare.

https://taxprofblog.aals.org/2026/06/16/fox-and-liscow-the-r...

> If buy-borrow-die were the dominant playbook, the rich would be leveraging aggressively against their ballooning portfolios. They aren’t. Borrowing against unrealized gains is, if anything, more of a middle-class habit than a billionaire one.

[–] aidenn0 1 day ago

Here's a different quote from the same article:

> Buy-borrow-die is a real loophole, and in absolute terms the rich borrow a lot...

[–] jayd16 1 day ago

What about a trillionaire habit?

[–] logankeenan 1 day ago

Can you elaborate more on why you don’t think a property tax is not a wealth tax? My understanding is that a wealth tax is a tax on the value of an asset. The asset could be a variety things that have net worth

Also, not all states apply property taxes the same. In my state, my house is assessed often by the government and then my taxes rise based on the value of my house.

[–] aidenn0 1 day ago

A wealth tax is a tax on your net wealth.

Property tax is a tax on specific property (usually we are talking about real property, but I've paid e.g. property tax on a car). It is usually irrespective of wealth.

Someone who buys a house with cash and their neighbor who is underwater on their mortgage and at risk of insolvency will pay the same tax.

Note also that you rarely see property taxes on e.g. valuable jewelry because unlike real property and cars, both of which have ownership centrally registered, jewelry is not centrally registered.

[–] logankeenan 1 day ago

If I understand you correctly, you’re saying the distinction on the “wealth” is specific to if the person owns the whole property. If they fully own the property then it could be considered a wealth tax. However, many people don’t since they have a mortgage so it’s not taxing them in their net wealth.

[–] aidenn0 1 day ago

Right, that's one major difference.

Another major difference is that houses are both harder to hide and easier to value than many other forms of wealth.

[–] devmor 1 day ago

I wonder if Delaware's massively oversized license tax portion is simply because so many companies incorporate there.

[–] estearum 1 day ago

Yes

[–] flowerlad 1 day ago

Here's a website that would have been significantly better if it had been written using AI. HN readers complain about "AI slop" but I would prefer AI slop over this site. Folks, if you are not motivated to make a decent page, please use AI.

[–] somat 1 day ago

Just curious, because it looks fine to me(ad blocker?), but there were other comments saying how terrible it is, what is wrong with it?

Header large image, small pointless article, see also navigation. Sure nothing exceptional, but also, nothing offensive, looks like every other "news site" I have seen.

[–] olsondv 1 day ago

Turn off your adblocker and experience auto-playing and unmuted video ad popups that cover most of the display.