City Combined Taxpayer Burden Report 2020
Truth in Accounting has released a new report on the 10 largest U.S. cities. The City Combined Taxpayer Burden report analyzes the finances of each city, its county, state, and underlying government units.
Other than New York City, most municipalities do not include the underlying government entities that taxpayers are also responsible for such as school districts, transit and housing authorities. This report analyzes these entities in order to give taxpayers a better understanding of their municipalities’ financial health and their Taxpayer Burden. A Taxpayer Burden is the approximate amount each taxpayer would be on the hook for to pay off the city’s debt. This is calculated by taking the total debt for the government and dividing it by the total number of taxpayers.
Due to the coronavirus pandemic, the Federal Reserve recently announced that it would buy the municipal bond debt of large cities. This report analyzed the fiscal health of the 10 largest cities based on financial reports before COVID-19 hit. The findings of this report show these cities went into the pandemic with bad fiscal health, and they will probably come out of the crisis even worse.
