One of many places where tax data goes
If you're reading this around the time of its publication, or at least in the time frame of early to mid April, you're probably either currently steeped in or free from the task of filing your taxes. While we can't offer any help or insight on ways to ease the burden of financial responsibility, what we can do instead is analyze a connecting tissue between the United States Census and taxes: the Census of Governments.
Every five years, in years ending with 2 or 7, a "Census of Governments" is held to identify "the scope and nature of the nation's state and local government sector" and provide "authoritative benchmark figures of public finance and public employment." This review and analysis occurs at the national, state, and local levels and focuses on government employment, organization, and financial status. This process dates back to 1957 wherein Title 13 of the U.S. Code stated:
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So what does such a survey's end result look like? Fortunately, just like with any Census survey, it's publicly available to view! If you see below, we have data from the 2017 Census of Governments, specifically highlighting tax results state by state and nationally and broken up by total, property, sales/gross receipts, license, income, and other.
This goes well beyond just taxation, too. One of the data points surveyed by the Census of Governments is a broad evaluation of the different types of governments found in each state, be they special purpose, county, or otherwise.
So then the question becomes: What is the ultimate purpose of this census? The answer might seem obvious from the outset - why wouldn't it be important to keep tabs on the organization of government and its general spending?
In general, the Census of Governments is one of the strongest means by which governmental transparency can occur. It's results are not only used by policy makers, but by journalists and educators as a way to understand and teach government. So if that's totally your jam, then you need to get on over to the U.S. Census and begin deep diving into the inner workings of government data.
Or if you are just a passerby and felt taken by the taxation opening to this post, you can also check out a cool tool the Census Bureau made that compares states and their rate of tax collection.
Header image sourced with permission from Arif Wijanarko.
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