Elise Gould and Natalie Sabadish at the Economic Policy Institute recently took a look at health expenditure data and found some interesting patterns – chiefly that health spending in this country is distributed extremely differently among certain groups. As their cool infographic below shows, a big chunk of what we spend as a country on health care goes to a tiny fraction of the population. In fact, half of all health care dollars are spent by only five percent of the population, while the top 20 percent of spenders consume 82 percent of all health-care dollars.

Stateline Midwest ~ May 2013

Indiana lawmakers have decided to hasten the demise of the state’s inheritance tax.

Stateline Midwest ~ May 2013

Illinois has become only the second U.S. state to enter into a unique kind of bond market — one in which “social impact bonds” are bought and sold.

States could gain more than $12 billion in tax revenue if the U.S. House of Representatives follows the Senate lead and passes the Marketplace Fairness Act. The legislation, passed by the Senate Monday, makes it easier for states to collect sales taxes for online purchases.

Taxes are the largest single source of general revenues for states. In 2011, taxes made up 45.9 percent of general state revenues, totaling $757.9 billion, or $2,432 per capita. In 2012, tax revenues increased 4.8 percent over 2011 in nominal terms, or 2.8 percent when adjusted for inflation. The largest component of tax revenues is sales and gross receipt taxes—47.2 percent—with corporate and personal income tax revenue coming in second at 40.5 percent. Other significant sources of state taxes include licenses at 6.8 percent of tax revenue; severance at 1.9 percent; and property at 1.9 percent.

After taking a hit during the recession, sales taxes have recovered partially, returning to prerecession levels in nominal terms by 2011. From 2011 to 2012, sales tax collections increased by 2.3 percent nationally. Seven states over this period saw a decrease in sales tax revenue, while the remaining 43 states saw increases ranging from a low of 0.05 percent in Virginia and 0.41 percent in Florida to a high of 36.4 percent in North Dakota and 30 percent in Arizona.

State revenues from taxes decreased during the Great Recession, but have been making a slow recovery since. In nominal terms, total state tax revenues reached prerecession levels in fiscal year 2011 after seeing year-over-year losses in 2009 and 2010. When adjusted for inflation, however, total tax revenues remain below prerecession levels.