I am looking for historic data on State and Local Sales Tax Rates (not tax revenues, but actual rates) for 2000 to 2010. I thought such data could be easily available, however I only managed to find the following information for 2017: https://taxfoundation.org/state-and-local-sales-tax-rates-midyear-2017/. I need similar data for 2000-2010. Surprisingly, neither IRS nor Census Bureau seem to provide historic sales tax rates.
1 Answer
This data is actually very challenging to get, as there is no federal regulation requiring the reporting or mandating the collection of state and local sales tax rates. A company that does business nationwide has only a few choices: have a team that combs through legislation, looking for tax changes; or hire a service that does this.
This data is also challenging to interpret. Will having this data actually answer your questions?
Part of the problem is that state and local taxes are invented by state and local politicians, and subject to all the weirdness that politicians can devise to benefit their cronies. In Minnesota, "essentials" are not subject to the state tax. This means that grocery store food is not taxed, because it's essential; but the same food bought "prepared" is taxed. (Strangely, toilet paper is taxed, even though everybody I know considers it to be essential.) For some reason lost to history, clothing is not taxed (meaning the Mall of America doesn't generate sales tax revenue commensurate with its size.) And that leads into another discussion of what constitutes clothing in Minnesota? An apron does, but a kitchen towel does not - so what rate do you collect on that kitchen gift collection? Safety equipment is taxed at a different rate, so the oven mitt can add another dimension to the problem. In Pennsylvania, the problems are different, but similar: sporting goods are not taxed, but clothing is. So how do you classify swimwear?
This means that just claiming that "Minnesota has a tax rate of 6.825%" doesn't mean that the state has an effective tax rate of 6.825% when you consider everything sold. If you're going to understand the effective tax rate, consider looking at it as a percentage of the amount of tax collected compared to the total of the goods sold at retail. This might actually be an easier number to derive, as each state should publish their sales tax revenue.
Edit:
Since there is no home for all the data, one option is to search for it by each state/state's localities. This essentially adds 50x the work, but is doable under certain circumstances.
A quick search provided me with California, and Indiana's on the state level. Having a templated email asking for this data (that you don't find online) from state/local makes the mass emailing less tedious.
