Tax Revenue

I suspect that not many of you got your copy of "A Field Guide to the Taxes of Texas." It is an annual report from the Comptroller’s office on where the money comes from in Texas. What kind of nut would read this stuff? Me.

Total revenue for the fiscal year ending in August is almost $105 billion. A few interesting income sources caught my eye, like $8.497 billion from fees, licenses, permits, fines and penalties. Remember, these are not taxes, they are fees. Then there was interest and investment income of $1.463 billion. Net lottery proceeds were down about 8% but still drew in nearly $2 billion. And, then there were sales taxes, which is the single largest income, at nearly $51 billion.

Taxes on tobacco at $1,342,454,822 were about 2.6% of total revenue. But, you have to understand that tobacco is taxed, then taxed by the Feds, and finally taxed a third time under the sales tax. Yet one is not allowed to smoke.

To be fair, shouldn’t there be a triple tax on gasoline, alcohol and twinkies?

PMO
©2015