The Nuts and Bolts of the Mississippi Budget: Chapter 3: A Look at State Revenue
October 2nd, 2012
After seeing how state funds are used, a natural question for readers is, “How does the state pay for all of our programs and services?” Chapter 3 of The Nuts and Bolts of the Mississippi Budget takes a closer look at how the state generates its revenue.
“Where Does Our State Get Its Money From?”
In order to make our government work, Mississippi collects revenue from residents and businesses in the form of taxes, fees, and funds received from the federal government. In FY 2011, residents, businesses, and the federal government contributed $16.1 billion to the state of Mississippi.
Figure 1, below, shows these Governmental Fund revenues by their source. State taxes accounted for $5,901,128,000 or 37% of state revenues, while Licenses, Fees, and Permits added $519,033 or 3% to our state revenues. Mississippi also receives a large share of its annual revenue from federal funds 53%, $8.1 billion, of state revenues came from the federal government in FY 2011.
After looking at the overall breakdown of revenues, Chapter 3 takes a closer look at the revenue generated from our state taxes. Note that Figure 1 shows that state taxes account for 37% of total Governmental Fund revenues for the state of Mississippi. Figure 2 shows a breakout of the 37% or $5,901,128,000 that individuals and businesses contributed to the state’s funds by paying taxes.
Three major sources of state tax revenue include: Sales and Use tax, Personal Income Tax, and Corporate Income Taxes. As seen above, 49% or $2,916,298,000 our state’s state tax revenue came from sales and use tax collections in FY 2011. Our state also collected $1,409,473,000 in personal income taxes—this represents 24% of our state’s tax revenues in FY 2011;
Want to Know More?
Want to know how Mississippi ranked nationally in the amount of general sales taxes paid per resident? Interested in learning how Mississippi ranked in the amount of income taxes paid per person among the 43 states that collect income taxes? These answers and more can be found in Chapter 3.
Still Want More?
There are 2 more chapters left in the Nuts and Bolts of the Mississippi Budget. Feel free to explore the full text here.
The next blog in this series will answer the question, “How does one evaluate a tax system?”
Author: Francinia D. McKeithan, Policy Analyst/ SFAI Policy FellowShare this article.
