(Newswire.net — April 17, 2017) — The highest taxes per capita are payed by the residents of Washington, because there are many people earning high level income.
Every resident of the District of Columbia in Washington, paid on average $37,000 in federal income, payroll and estate taxes last year. The next closest was Delaware, at $16,000 per person.
Roberton Williams from Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center at the Urban Institute, said that Washington pays such a tax because there are a lot of people earning a high level of income.
Federal State of West Virginia, Mississippi and New Mexico have low median household incomes, because their residents pay a much smaller federal tax. West Virginia has paid $3,600 per person last year, Mississippi $3,900, and New Mexico more than $4,000 per person.
According to a 2015 study by the New York state comptroller, for every dollar the District sends to the federal government, it gets back almost $4.
Washington’s rate of return is also higher than any other state, because most of it comes from the wages of federal employees, whose good salaries are paid from the budget of the United States.
The closest state is Mississippi, which gets back $2.57 in federal spending for every dollar it sends to Washington. New Mexico, West Virginia and Alabama are also big winners when it comes to federal taxes and spending, Morning Star reports.
Morgan Scarboro, a policy analyst at the Tax Foundation, explained that citizens of these three states – New Mexico, West Virginia and Alabama, have lower incomes so they pay less in taxes and, because they have lower incomes, they get more federal aid.
Most states get more money from the federal government than they pay in taxes. According to a New York study, for every dollar they send to Washington, Americans get $1.22 on average. That’s why the federal government has a budget deficit.
When it comes to taxes and spending, the biggest losers are New Jersey that gets back just 77 cents for every dollar it pays, then Wyoming (81 cents) and Connecticut (83 cents).
New York gets 91 cents for every dollar it sends to Washington.
However, earnings in those four states are higher than the national average.
The filing deadline this year is Tuesday April 18, but the Department of Taxes said that millions of taxpayers have not yet submitted their applications.