Tax Data in Data Library

INTRODUCTION

In the Data Library, we have Tax data going back to 2001. This way users can quickly look at changes in Taxes by Year for a region using the Dashboard or Explore.

OVERVIEW 

The tax data are available for all states and counties in the U.S., for all years from 2001 to 1-2 years prior to the latest year of IMPLAN data, depending on the time of purchase (does not include quarterly COVID 2020 data sets). The data include the State and County FIPS codes and description, the name of the unit of government, the type of transaction, the year, and the value. The values for the state represent state-owned government activity, while the values for the counties represent locally-owned government activity. The following table shows a representative sample. 

StateFips CountyFips Description UnitOfGovernmentName TransactionType Year Value
01  073  Jefferson County  BIRMINGHAM AIRPORT AUTHORITY  Bond Funds - Cash and Securities  2010  119,629 
01  073  Jefferson County  FAIRFIELD CITY SCHOOL DISTRICT  Bond Funds - Cash and Securities  2010  18,668 
01  073  Jefferson County  BESSEMER CITY  Miscellaneous - Fines and Forfeits  2010  1,311 
01  073  Jefferson County  VESTAVIA HILLS CITY  Tax - Alcoholic Beverage License  2010  37 
01  073  Jefferson County  JEFFERSON COUNTY  Tax - Motor Fuels Sales  2010  385 
01  073  Jefferson County  TRUSSVILLE CITY  Tax - Motor Vehicle License  2010  149 
01  073  Jefferson County  FAIRFIELD HEALTH CARE AUTHORITY  Tax - Property  2010  314 

These are referred to as transfer payments data (e.g., taxes, fees, and government spending). To compile this, IMPLAN combines three data sources in increasing order of preference: The Census of Government, the Annual Survey of State and Local Government Finances, and the Annual Survey of State Government Tax Collections. There are no estimates or imputations made by IMPLAN in this data set. 

The data represented here are used as distributors for data that one would find in the IMPLAN tool. As a result, they are not meant to be compared to what exists in IMPLAN SAMs/the Region Details area of IMPLAN.

DASHBOARD

This Dashboard includes two tiles: 

  • Year over Year is a line chart showing Tax over Data Years for the filtered Region(s). 
  • Tax Table is a table chart showing Tax over Data Years. 

When viewing a Dashboard, use the filters to change the data points displayed. Filter options include:

  • Dollar Type: real by default
  • Data Year: most recent by default
  • Dollar Year: current year by default
  • Region Type: state by default
  • State: by default North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia
  • County: no county filter is set by default

The Dashboard Actions in the upper right provides more options such as downloading the Dashboard to a PDF. On each tile, click the Tile actions (a series of three vertical dots that appear in the upper right of a tile when hovering over it with a cursor) for the option to download the data within that tile. Select Explore from here within the Tile actions to access more data query options. Exploring from the Dashboard allows users to dig into the data starting from the settings within the Dashboard tile. 

EXPLORE

Explore the Tax Data by selecting Tax Data from the Explore dropdown menu, or by selecting Explore from here from the Tax Data Dashboard Tile or Look. 

By default in Explore, the Dollar Type is Real, the Dollar Year is the current year, and the Data Year is the most recent Data Year. With this setting, all dollar values included in a data query will be adjusted for inflation and displayed in current year dollars. It is recommended to always either filter or pivot on Data Year. Otherwise, data measures will be summed over Data Years. Region Type is by default State. Data queries will include State level tax data with this setting. 

FILTER-ONLY FIELDS

DOLLAR TYPE

When Dollar Type is Real, Nominal dollar values are adjusted for inflation/deflation such that each dollar value Measures will be displayed in the selected Dollar Year(s). Dollar Year only applies when Dollar Type is Real. 

When Dollar Type is Nominal, dollar value Measures will be unadjusted, therefore they will be displayed in the same Dollar Year as the Data Year.

REGION TYPE

View State level taxes by choosing State as the Region Type. Choosing County as the Region level will list County level taxes in the query. 

To view state level data, select State in the Tax Region Type filter and select State as a Dimension. To pull county level data, select County in the Region Type filter and select County as a Dimension. Due to the nature of how this data is structured, it is not possible to filter and/or include two different Region Types within a query in the standard way. This can get murky when attempting to see results by County, for a filtered State, which is a common thing to do for all Explores in Data Library.

To view county level data for a specific state, select County in the Region Type filter and select County as a Dimension. Then select County as a Filter. Within the County filter, select Contains from the qualifying field dropdown. Now, within the County filter type the name of the state to filter on. This will display data for all counties that exist within the filtered state. 

 

DIMENSIONS

Select a Dimension to include as a column with all Dimension possibilities.

 

Click Filter on a Dimension to specify which Dimension possibilities appear in the data query. 

Click Pivot on a Dimension to transpose the Dimension rows into columns. 

Dimensions Details
County All U.S. counties are possible Dimensions. 
Data Year All IMPLAN Data Years are possible Dimensions.
Description All tax descriptions are possible Dimensions.
Dollar Year

Years 1997 through 2060 are possible Dimensions. Dollar Year only applies when Dollar Type is Real. 

When Dollar Type is Real, Nominal dollar values are adjusted to be in the selected Dollar Year(s). When Filtering by multiple Dollar Years, select or pivot on Dollar Year to prevent potential double counting.

Five Digit Fips

A Five Digit Fips is a county code. The first two digits indicate the state and the following three digits indicate the county. All U.S. Five Digit Fips codes are possible Dimensions. 

This Dimension is used to map the data in the County View Map Chart found on the Dashboard. A list of FIPS codes can be found at the following link: 

https://www.census.gov/library/reference/code-lists/ansi.html#top

Region 

All 50 States plus the District of Columbia are possible Dimensions. 

Pivoting or selecting Region will display filtered states when filtering on state and will display filtered counties when filtering on county. 

State All 50 States plus the District of Columbia are possible Dimensions. 
Unit of Government Name The Unit of Government indicates the recipient of the tax. Possible Dimensions are region specific.

 

MEASURES 

Measures are displayed based on Dimension settings. Select a Measure to include as a column in the data query. 

Measures Details
Tax Tax dollar value.

 

RELATED ARTICLES

IMPLAN Data Library

Explores - Looks - Dashboards

Taxes: Where's the Tax?

Written August 30, 2023