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> "Germany paid net €12bn. California has net federal tax receipts of $450bn"

It is meaningless to compare a net transfer to gross tax receipts. California's large, wealthy population generates high federal tax receipts, but it's net contribution is actually negative because the federal government currently spends more in California than it receives in taxes.

Source: https://www.governing.com/week-in-finance/gov-taxpayers-10-s...

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It's pretty unlikely that this is still the case. The article you link to appears to be citing a 2017 report which itself uses data from FY2015[1]. This means that it doesn't take into account the 2017 federal tax overhaul which, among other things, capped deductions for state and local taxes paid. This means high tax high income states will almost certainly be paying more in federal taxes. Unfortunately, I don't think the data is available to confirm or refute this yet.

[1]: https://rockinst.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/2017-09-28_B...

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