Arizona Taxation

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Online Resources
None at this time

Why Use Tax Records
By studying several consecutive years of tax records you may determine when a young men came of age, when individuals moved in and out of a home, or when they died leaving heirs. Authorities determined wealth (real estate, or income) to be taxed. Taxes can be for polls, real and personal estate, or schools.

Tax record content varies and may include the name and residence of the taxpayer, description of the real estate, name of original purchaser, description of personal property, number of males over 21, number of school children, slaves, and farm animals. Tax records usually are arranged by date and locality and are not normally indexed. Tax records can be used in place of missing land and census records to locate a person’s residence.

County Level
Records at Arizona State Archives

State Level
The Arizona State Archives has county tax, license, and assessment rolls for many counties. Some are for a single year, and others are for consecutive years. For specifics on lists available, refer to the archives' printed Guide, cited under its listing in Arizona Archives, Libraries, and Societies.

State Archives Arizona State Archives 1901 W. Madison St. Phoenix, AZ 85009 Telephone: (602) 926-3720

[https://ask.azlibrary.gov/starweb/l.skca-catalog/servlet.starweb?path=l.skca-catalog/skcacatalog.web#? Arizona State Knowledge (ASK) Center Catalog] is an online catalog of available archival collections. To find county tax record collections, choose Core Collections, and then the county. Assessor and Treasurer subgroups contain the year and description of available tax records.

Tax Laws
Since 1861, the tax collector collects taxes. Previously the treasurer and later the sheriff collected taxes. Except for inheritance taxes, the tax collector collects all county taxes, including "taxes on real and personal property, schools and special districts, and business licenses. "Historically the office of tax collector was combined with the office of county treasurer and sheriff. Today it is usually with the treasurer's office."

Abraham Lincoln instituted the income tax in 1862, and on July 1, 1862, Congress passed the Internal Revenue Act, creating the Bureau of Internal Revenue (later renamed to the Internal Revenue Service). This act was intended to “provide Internal Revenue to support the Government and to pay interest on the Public Debt.” Instituted in the height of the Civil War, the “Public Debt” at the time primarily consisted of war expenses. For the Southern States that were part of the Confederate side of the Civil War, once Union troops took over parts of the Southern States, income tax were instituted on them.
 * To learn more about this Collection click here
 * To learn more about the Civil War taxes click here

What history has shown us is that while property taxes are locally levied, there is significant state involvement with the amount of tax local political subdivisions can levy, how property assessments are conducted, and what services local taxing subdivisions must provide for their residents. Many of the changes the state has made in the past to lower the local property tax required a shift in financial responsibility from the local governments to the state. This comes at a cost to state taxpayers, because the state has obligations it must fund as well, with a limited amount of state tax dollars.