Taxpayers Burden

September 27, 2012


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The Institute for Truth in Accounting (IFTA) has published the results from their study into state budgets. This graph represents the “taxpayer burden” representing the amount each taxpayer would have to send to their state’s treasury to fill in their state’s financial hole in the top 5 “sinkhole states” and top 5 “sunshine states”. If state budgets are truly balanced, no taxpayer burden would accumulate. Taxpayer burdens exist because costs, including those for employees’ retirement benefits, were incurred by states in prior years but responsibility for paying these costs has been shifted onto future taxpayers. For this graph, in order for Connecticut to have a balanced budget, each taxpayer would have to pay $49,000 but Alaska has a surplus of $21,200 per taxpayer.

Source: The Financial State of the States (Second Edition, published by the Institute for Truth in Accounting