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State Tax per Capita — Methodology and Sources

Last reviewed: 2025-05-20

What this measures

Total state-government taxation revenue per resident, Vic / NSW / QLD, inflation-adjusted by default. Answers the question: "how much state tax is each resident paying, after controlling for inflation and state size?"

Why ABS, not state Budget Papers

State budget papers define tax categories differently (one state's "transfer duty" is another's "stamp duty"; some include payroll, some don't, etc.). For cross-state per-capita comparison, ABS 5506.0 (Taxation Revenue, Australia) applies a single national taxonomy, so totals are directly comparable.

This is why Chart 3a (Vic line-item stacked area) uses Vic Budget Paper 5 directly — it needs the granularity. But Chart 3b uses ABS so cross-state lines are apples-to-apples.

How values are derived

ABS state total tax revenue ÷ ABS ERP at 30 June, then deflated by RBA CPI (base FY 2023-24).

Default toggles

Per the brief, Chart 3b defaults to per-capita ON, inflation-adjusted ON, NSW ON, QLD ON. The point is the cross-state comparison; the default state shows it immediately.

Caveats

  • ABS 5506.0 totals may differ from state-published tax revenue figures by 1-3% due to ABS accrual adjustments and timing differences.
  • Per-capita doesn't account for differences in the tax base composition (Vic has more property transactions, NSW has more gambling, etc.) — only the total revenue per resident.

v0.1 status

Hand-keyed seed values pending automated ABS.Stat SDMX integration.

Sources