Comparative Beer Taxes
[Another beer tax post, yes, but one with interest to everyone in America. No apologies this time.]
It's often useful to see a whole before you try to understand a part. Thanks to data supplied by the Tax Foundation (prost to Jacob Grier), we have a decade of beer taxes. I have dumped these into an Excel spreadsheet, ignored the footnotes (tax data are incredibly byzantine--there are all manner of exceptions and add-ons and funkiness), and have a rough idea of what kind of taxes states actually assess. Given that there's a lot of talk about Oregon's obscenely low taxes, it's worth seeing them in context. Below the fold I'll include a list of all 50 states and DC. But first, here are some interesting facts.
Here's another interesting thing. It appears that there's no correlation between tax rates and per-capita consumption. (I didn't run the numbers, but did apply a few minutes of "visual inspection"--that's high-level statspeak for "eyeballing it.") States vary quite a bit by consumption, from a low in Utah of 13.4 to a high in North Dakota of 32.4. But when you sort them by the beer tax, they all average out, more or less. Have a look at the five quintiles of per-capita consumption sorted by taxes:
Okay, here are the state-by-state taxes. For fun, I'll include per-capita consumption as well--though the most recent data are just from '07.
It's often useful to see a whole before you try to understand a part. Thanks to data supplied by the Tax Foundation (prost to Jacob Grier), we have a decade of beer taxes. I have dumped these into an Excel spreadsheet, ignored the footnotes (tax data are incredibly byzantine--there are all manner of exceptions and add-ons and funkiness), and have a rough idea of what kind of taxes states actually assess. Given that there's a lot of talk about Oregon's obscenely low taxes, it's worth seeing them in context. Below the fold I'll include a list of all 50 states and DC. But first, here are some interesting facts.
Six HighestIn this case, the median is more useful. (The median is the point that divides the group in half. If ten guys are sitting in a bar and they all make $50,000 a year and Bill Gates walks into the room, the mean income skyrockets. The median, more useful in describing the income distribution of the bar, barely budges.) Twenty-one states have beer taxes of five bucks or less per barrel. Only 13 have taxes over $10 a barrel. Only five are above $20, and three above $30 (though one member of that club, Georgia, jumped more than sixteen bucks to $31 in January).
Alaska - $33.17
Alabama - $32.55
Georgia - $31.31
Hawaii - $28.83
S. Carolina - $23.87
N. Carolina - $16.48
Six Lowest
Wyoming - $0.59
Missouri - $1.86
Wisconsin - $1.86
Colorado - $2.48
Pennsylvania - $2.48
Oregon - $2.60
Mean: $8.81
Median: $5.74
Here's another interesting thing. It appears that there's no correlation between tax rates and per-capita consumption. (I didn't run the numbers, but did apply a few minutes of "visual inspection"--that's high-level statspeak for "eyeballing it.") States vary quite a bit by consumption, from a low in Utah of 13.4 to a high in North Dakota of 32.4. But when you sort them by the beer tax, they all average out, more or less. Have a look at the five quintiles of per-capita consumption sorted by taxes:
22.6 - lowest-taxed quintile(For you data geeks, I didn't average the per-capita numbers, but actually went to the state populations, since they obviously vary a lot.) Upshot: taxes don't appear to influence consumption. Hard to say whether that's a pro or con on the beer tax: discusss.
20.0 - second-lowest quintile
21.5 - middle quintile
22.8 - second-highest quintile
22.8 - highest-taxed quintile
21.8 - national average
Okay, here are the state-by-state taxes. For fun, I'll include per-capita consumption as well--though the most recent data are just from '07.
Click to view table of state beer taxes...