Photo by Keith Ivey.
Residents in the District pay more federal taxes than any state in the country, and it’s not even close.
Last year, the per capita tax bill for D.C. was $37,000, more than double the next jurisdiction—Delaware, where residents paid an average of $16,000 in federal income, payroll, and estate taxes. On the low end, nearby West Virginia paid $3,600 in federal taxes per person.
The Associated Press calculated these figures using population data from the Census and IRS tax data.
In this case, though, money isn’t power. D.C. isn’t a state and doesn’t have a say on Capitol Hill, with neither a full voting member in the House or the Senate.
“D.C. residents are the only Americans who pay federal taxes without a vote for against those taxes, or anything else,” said D.C. Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton in the lead up to Tax Day in 2015, which she called Taxation Without Representation Day.
D.C. government made the issue more visible in 2009 by unveiling an electronic billboard outside the John A. Wilson Building, the home of city politics, that shows how much money residents pay to the federal government without getting a vote. (Legislation from the council also called for a ticker by Nats Park, but the owners of the team said it would be too “political” and “controversial.“)
At least we’re seeing a return on the investment. D.C. gets almost $4 back for every dollar spent in taxes through federal spending, grants, and, most of all, salaries for federal employees, according to a study from the New York State Comptroller in 2015 flagged by AP.
Rachel Kurzius