DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE BUREAU OF THE CENSUS GOVERNMENTS DIVISION STATE GOVERNMENT TAX COLLECTIONS ANNUAL SURVEY TECHNICAL DOCUMENTATION The State Government Tax Collections files and tables contain annual statistics on the fiscal year tax collections of all 50 state governments in the Nation. The statistics are for state governments only. They should not be interpreted as state area data (state plus local government tax collections combined). This technical documentation contains information on the files and tables available for fiscal years 1992 - 1995, as well as the revised file formats for fiscal years 1996 and 1997. The documentation consists of the following sections: ABSTRACT FILENAME CONVENTIONS AND CONTENT RECORD LAYOUTS ITEM CODES AND SHORT DESCRIPTIONS TOTALS AND SUBTOTALS IN THE FILES SOURCES AND CONTACTS ABSTRACT Concepts and Terminology In this survey and for all Census Bureau surveys on state and local government tax collections, "taxes" are defined as all compulsory contributions exacted by a government for public purposes, except employer and employee assessments for retirement and social insurance purposes, which are classified as insurance trust revenue. Outside the scope of this report, accordingly, are collections for the unemployment compensation "taxes" imposed by each of the state governments and the District of Columbia. Included, however, are all receipts from licenses and compulsory fees, including those that are imposed for regulatory purposes, as well as those designated to provide revenue. Tax revenue is further defined to include related penalty and interest receipts of a government, but to exclude protested amounts and refunds. The deduction from gross collections of amounts refunded is particularly significant with respect to motor fuel sales taxes ("gasoline" taxes) and individual income taxes. The general nature of the several major kinds of taxes shown separately in this report is suggested by their headings. More detailed definitions are contained in the Government Finance and Employment Classification Manual, which can be found on the Governments Division Internet web site. Sources of Data and Limitations Most of the data in this report were gathered by a mail canvass of appropriate state government offices that are directly involved with state-administered taxes. In some instances, data were compiled by trained representatives of the Bureau of the Census from official state government records. In either case, the classification of taxes among the different categories shown here is entirely the responsibility of the Census Bureau, and might not reflect the actual classification or presentation used by the various state government respondents. The statistics are subject to possible inaccuracies in classification, response, and processing. Every effort is made to keep such errors to a minimum through care in examining, editing, and tabulating the data. The tax figures shown are net of refunds. They include amounts of State-imposed taxes collected or received by the state and subsequently distributed to local governments. Locally collected and retained tax amounts are not included in this survey. The tax revenue data pertain to state fiscal years that end on June 30 in all but four states. Amounts shown for these four states reflect the different timing of their respective fiscal years, which were the 12-month periods ending on March 31 for New York, August 31 for Texas, and September 30 for Alabama and Michigan. [In the 1992 - 1995 data files, the fiscal year ending date for the District of Columbia was September 30.] Data have been included in this report for the District of Columbia for the 1992 - 1995 series, even though it is classified as a municipality for Census Bureau survey purposes. These data, displayed on an exhibit basis only, were provided for convenient reference in relation to corresponding data for individual state governments. District of Columbia amounts, if presented, are excluded from national totals of state government tax collections. FILENAME CONVENTIONS AND CONTENT All the State Tax tables are stored in 3 different formats. First, there are viewable tables that also can be saved as files and downloaded. These are in ASCII text formats with .txt filename extensions. For each year, there also are spreadsheet files available for downloading. The file format (spreadsheet application) for the 1992 - 1996 survey years was LOTUS, so that the files have a ".wk1" filename extension. For the survey year 1997, the files have a ".xls" filename extension, which represents an MS Excel file. The third format in which the data are available is a rectangular, fixed format, ASCII text file. These are given a filename extension of ".dat" to distinguish them from the downloadable ASCII text files that replicate the viewable tables. The basic naming convention includes the survey year, a reference to the State Government Tax Collection survey, and a file number. The file version is identified by the filename extension, as indicated above. The standard naming convention becomes @@tax###.*** where: "@@" = year (95=1995, 94=1994, 93=1993) "tax" = references the State Government Tax Collection survey "###" = file number, if necessary (001 = file 1, 014 = file 14, etc.). Note that these characters might be absent when there is only one file. ".***" = extension, with options of .wk1 = lotus, .xls = MS Excel. .txt = viewable files, in ASCII text, .dat = text data (ASCII text), for rectangular file For the viewable tables of the survey years covering 1996 and 1997, all the state governments are contained in a single file. For the years prior to 1996, these were contained in multiple files. Below is a listing of state tax data that are in each viewable file for the 1992 - 1995 State Government Tax Collection series. @@tax001 State Totals @@tax002 Alabama, Alaska, Arizona @@tax003 Arkansas, California, Colorado @@tax004 Connecticut, Delaware, Florida @@tax005 Georgia, Hawaii, Idaho @@tax006 Illinois, Indiana, Iowa @@tax007 Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana @@tax008 Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts @@tax009 Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi @@tax010 Missouri, Montana, Nebraska @@tax011 Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey @@tax012 New Mexico, New York, North Carolina @@tax013 North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma @@tax014 Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island @@tax015 South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee @@tax016 Texas, Utah, Vermont @@tax017 Virginia, Washington, West Virginia @@tax018 Wisconsin, Wyoming, District of Columbia There are two other changes to the State Government Tax Collection files and tables after 1995. One is that the District of Columbia is excluded from the statistics. The second difference is the population data for each state have been added to the information. The populations are as of July 1 of the survey year. These are taken from the series Estimates of the Population of States: Annual Time Series. Source: Population Estimates Program, Population Division, U.S. Bureau of the Census, Washington, DC 20233 RECORD LAYOUTS The files and tables contain nearly identical content. The data and amount of detail are identical. Variation among them pertains to the descriptions and or the format of the file. For the spreadsheet files, the records are self-explanatory, since they contain descriptive text within the spreadsheet. The same is true of the viewable tables, which can be downloaded as ASCII text files. Users can download these files and import them into any application. The record layout for the rectangular, fixed length, ".dat" files is shown below. Each item code (tax item) is followed by the collections amount for each state government, in the order shown below. Dollar amounts are in thousands. Users should note that this record layout applies only to the files for survey years 1995 and earlier. Field & Description Length Positions 1. Tax Code 3 1 - 3 2. Alabama(AL) 9 4 - 12 3. Alaska(AK) 10 13 - 22 4. Arizona(AZ) 10 23 - 32 5. Arkansas(AR) 10 33 - 42 6. California(CA) 10 43 - 52 7. Colorado(CO) 10 53 - 62 8. Connecticut(CT) 10 63 - 72 9. Delaware(DE) 10 73 - 82 10. Florida(FL) 10 83 - 92 11. Georgia(GA) 10 93 - 102 12. Hawaii (HI) 10 103 - 112 13. Idaho(ID) 10 113 - 122 14. Illinois(IL) 10 123 - 132 15. Indiana(IN) 10 133 - 142 16. Iowa(IA) 10 143 - 152 17. Kansas(KS) 10 153 - 162 18. Kentucky(KY) 10 163 - 172 19. Louisiana(LA) 10 173 - 182 20. Maine(ME) 10 183 - 192 21. Maryland(MD) 10 193 - 202 22. Massachusetts(MA) 10 203 - 212 23. Michigan(MI) 10 213 - 222 24. Minnesota(MN) 10 223 - 232 25. Mississippi(MS) 10 233 - 242 26. Missouri(MO) 10 243 - 252 27. Montana(MT) 10 253 - 262 28. Nebraska(NE) 10 263 - 272 29. Nevada(NV) 10 273 - 282 30. New Hampshire(NH) 10 283 - 292 31. New Jersey(NJ) 10 293 - 302 32. New Mexico(NM) 10 303 - 312 33. New York(NY) 10 313 - 322 34. North Carolina(NC) 10 323 - 332 35. North Dakota(ND) 10 333 - 342 36. Ohio(OH) 10 343 - 352 37. Oklahoma(OK) 10 353 - 362 38. Oregon(OR) 10 363 - 372 39. Pennsylvania(PA) 10 373 - 382 40. Rhode Island(RI) 10 383 - 392 41. South Carolina(SC) 10 393 - 402 42. South Dakota(SD) 10 403 - 412 43. Tennessee(TN) 10 413 - 422 44. Texas(TX) 10 423 - 432 45. Utah(UT) 10 433 - 442 46. Vermont(VT) 10 443 - 452 47. Virginia(VA) 10 453 - 462 48. Washington(WA) 10 463 - 472 49. West Virginia(WV) 10 473 - 482 50. Wisconsin(WI) 10 483 - 492 51. Wyoming(WY) 10 493 - 502 52. Washington, D.C.(DC) 10 503 - 512 Beginning with the 1996 survey year, the file was modified as indicated previously. That is, there was a record added for the population of each state, and the field (column) for the District of Columbia was deleted. The resulting record layout is shown below. The population for each state is treated as a tax data item with the label POP. Field & Description Length Positions 1. Tax Code 3 1 - 3 2. Alabama(AL) 9 4 - 12 3. Alaska(AK) 10 13 - 22 4. Arizona(AZ) 10 23 - 32 5. Arkansas(AR) 10 33 - 42 6. California(CA) 10 43 - 52 7. Colorado(CO) 10 53 - 62 8. Connecticut(CT) 10 63 - 72 9. Delaware(DE) 10 73 - 82 10. Florida(FL) 10 83 - 92 11. Georgia(GA) 10 93 - 102 12. Hawaii (HI) 10 103 - 112 13. Idaho(ID) 10 113 - 122 14. Illinois(IL) 10 123 - 132 15. Indiana(IN) 10 133 - 142 16. Iowa(IA) 10 143 - 152 17. Kansas(KS) 10 153 - 162 18. Kentucky(KY) 10 163 - 172 19. Louisiana(LA) 10 173 - 182 20. Maine(ME) 10 183 - 192 21. Maryland(MD) 10 193 - 202 22. Massachusetts(MA) 10 203 - 212 23. Michigan(MI) 10 213 - 222 24. Minnesota(MN) 10 223 - 232 25. Mississippi(MS) 10 233 - 242 26. Missouri(MO) 10 243 - 252 27. Montana(MT) 10 253 - 262 28. Nebraska(NE) 10 263 - 272 29. Nevada(NV) 10 273 - 282 30. New Hampshire(NH) 10 283 - 292 31. New Jersey(NJ) 10 293 - 302 32. New Mexico(NM) 10 303 - 312 33. New York(NY) 10 313 - 322 34. North Carolina(NC) 10 323 - 332 35. North Dakota(ND) 10 333 - 342 36. Ohio(OH) 10 343 - 352 37. Oklahoma(OK) 10 353 - 362 38. Oregon(OR) 10 363 - 372 39. Pennsylvania(PA) 10 373 - 382 40. Rhode Island(RI) 10 383 - 392 41. South Carolina(SC) 10 393 - 402 42. South Dakota(SD) 10 403 - 412 43. Tennessee(TN) 10 413 - 422 44. Texas(TX) 10 423 - 432 45. Utah(UT) 10 433 - 442 46. Vermont(VT) 10 443 - 452 47. Virginia(VA) 10 453 - 462 48. Washington(WA) 10 463 - 472 49. West Virginia(WV) 10 473 - 482 50. Wisconsin(WI) 10 483 - 492 51. Wyoming(WY) 10 493 - 502 ITEM CODES AND SHORT DESCRIPTIONS Below are the finance tax codes with their corresponding description. Further definitions for each code are found in the Governments Classification Manual on Government Finances and Employment which may be accessed from the Governments Division Internet web site. Code Description T01 Property Taxes T09 General sales or Gross Receipts Taxes T10 Alcoholic Beverages - Selective Sales Taxes T11 Amusements - Selective Sales Taxes T12 Insurance Premiums - Selective Sales Taxes T13 Motor Fuels - Selective Sales Taxes T14 Pari-mutuels - Selective Sales Taxes T15 Public Utilities - Selective Sales Taxes T16 Tobacco Products - Selective Sales Taxes T19 Other Selective Sales & Gross Receipts Taxes T20 Alcoholic Beverages Licenses T21 Amusements Licenses T22 Corporations in General Licenses T23 Hunting & Fishing Licenses T24 Motor Vehicle Licenses T25 Motor Vehicle Operators Licenses T27 Public Utilities Licenses T28 Occupation & Business Licenses T29 Other License Taxes T40 Individual Income Taxes T41 Corporation Net Income Taxes T50 Death & Gift Taxes T51 Documentary & Stock Transfer Taxes T53 Severance Taxes T99 Taxes, Not Elsewhere Classified TOTALS AND SUBTOTALS IN THE FILES Many users want to manipulate the statistics in accordance with their own needs. When using the basic data file (.dat) for this survey, it is useful to know how the item codes were tabulated to arrive at the totals and subtotals shown in the viewable tables on the website. The individual item codes that comprise these various aggregates are shown below. They apply to all survey years. Total Taxes: T01+T09+T10+T11+T12+T13+T14+T15+T16+T19 +T20+T21+T22+T23+T24+T25+T27+T28+T29 +T40+T41+T50+T51+T53+T99 Total Sales & Gross Receipts Taxes: T09+T10+T11+T12+T13 +T14+T15+T16+T19 Total Selective Sales Taxes: T10+T11+T12+T13+T14+T15+T16+T19 Total License Taxes: +T20+T21+T22+T23+T24+T25+T27+T28+T29 Total Other Taxes: +T40+T41+T50+T51+T53+T99 SOURCES AND CONTACTS The Government Finance and Employment Classification Manual is available from the Census Bureau's web site on the Internet. Other state and local government financial statistics, as well as employment statistics, can be obtained from the Census Bureau's site on the Internet. The Census Bureau home page contains an index. Statistics on governments can be found by using the index and moving to the "Governments" reference in the index. . The Internet address for the Governments Division's home page is: http://www.census.gov/govs/www/index.html Questions about these state government tax collection statistics may be directed to Mr. William Kehm at 1-800-242-4523 or by email at william.n.kehm@ccmail.census.gov