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How Much Does Your State Collect in Excise Taxes Per Capita?

1 min readBy: Jared Walczak

State and local governments rely on a variety of taxA tax is a mandatory payment or charge collected by local, state, and national governments from individuals or businesses to cover the costs of general government services, goods, and activities. types to raise revenue, one of which is the excise taxAn excise tax is a tax imposed on a specific good or activity. Excise taxes are commonly levied on cigarettes, alcoholic beverages, soda, gasoline, insurance premiums, amusement activities, and betting, and typically make up a relatively small and volatile portion of state and local and, to a lesser extent, federal tax collections. . Like gas taxes, beer, liquor. Others include taxes on the purchase of amusements, insurance premiums, and pari-mutuels.

This week’s map looks at combined state and local excise tax collections per capita in each state. On average, $535 per person was collected in each state in fiscal year 2013 (including local governments).

Vermont comes in highest in the nation with $1,029 in total state and local excise tax collections per person. Rounding out the rest of the top five are Nevada ($887 per person), Hawaii ($868 per person), Minnesota ($817 per person), and Connecticut ($812 per person).

On the low end, Wyoming state and local governments collect only $285 per person, followed by Idaho ($295 per person), Arizona ($304 per person), South Carolina ($321 per person), and Nebraska ($323 per person).

Check out the map below to see how your state compares.

For more on excise taxes, click here.

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