The Census Bureau says half of all state tax revenues are collected by just nine states.
California topped the list, while South Dakota was the state with the lowest tax revenues in 1992, the bureau said Monday.Utah ranked 37th. The state collected $2 billion in taxes in 1992, up 6.8 percent from 1991.
State governments collected $328.5 billion that year, up 5.6 percent from the year before.
Accounting for more than half of the total were California, New York, Texas, Pennsylvania, Florida, Illinois, New Jersey, Ohio and Michigan.
Overall, Alaska collected the most tax per capita, but like several other states a big share of its revenues come from taxes on oil and minerals and thus are not collected directly from state residents.
Similarly, states with large tourism businesses such as Hawaii and Nevada export their collections by raising much of their income through sales taxes, commented Census statistician Gerard Keffer.