California is nation’s top tax collector

California is not only the nation’s most populous state but the 800-pound gorilla of taxation, a new Census Bureau report reveals.

During the 2013-14 fiscal year that ended last June, California collected $138.1 billion in taxes of all kinds, 16 percent of all state taxes collected in the nation and more than the next two states, New York and Texas, combined.

Personal and corporate income taxes, $76.9 billion, accounted for 55.6 percent of California’s revenues and were nearly a quarter of all the state income taxes in the nation.

Sales taxes of all kinds, including fuel taxes, generated $50 billion in California, and licensing taxes and fees another $8.9 billion.

The $138.1 billion in California state taxes amounted to $3,560 per resident, which is one of the nation’s highest per capita taxation levels, but not the highest. New York, for example, collected $3,908 per resident. Texas, meanwhile, has no income tax and its state taxes amounted to just $2,048 per person.

The report covered just state taxes, not those levied by cities, counties, school districts and other local governments, such as California’s approximately $50 billion in local property taxes.