Alabama - County tax records are housed in the office of the tax assessor. These records are usually arranged by legal description and are not indexed. There are few counties with tax records before 1860. The National Archives has a microfilm publication titled Internal Revenue Assessment Lists for Alabama, 1865-1866 (NARA M754, 6 reels).

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Alaska - The Department of Taxation was an agency of the Territory of Alaska, and the Department of Revenue, was an agency of the State of Alaska. When Alaska became a state, the Department of Revenue absorbed many of the functions of the seven territorial agencies.

The Alaska State Archives has published both the Record Group Inventory, as well as unpublished Series Inventories and Container Lists which cover the Department of Revenue records, including territorial records. The State Archives also has records created by the following territorial agencies which had revenue or taxation functions:

• RG 103 Territorial Department of Taxation, 1949-1952) (unarranged).
• RG 105 Office of the Territorial Treasurer, 1913-1957 (Series Inventories and Container Lists).
• RG 106 Territorial Department of Audit, Series 102, Fox Brand Program, 1923-1943 (Series Inventory and Container Lists).
• RG 321 Territorial Banking Board, 1914-1958 (unpublished Series Inventories and Container Lists).

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Arizona - The Arizona State Archives has county tax, license, and assessment rolls for the following counties:

• Tax and License Rolls. Cochise, 1883–1914; Maricopa, 1878–1914; Pima, 1897–1919
• Assessment Rolls. Apache, 1905; Cochise, 1905, 1925; Coconino, 1905; Maricopa, 1872–1926; Mohave, 1905; Navajo, 1905; Pima, 1879–1915; Pinal, 1905–36; and Yavapai, 1919–58

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Arkansas - Tax records are available at the respective county courthouses and in the Arkansas History Commission. Nearly 600 tax books, original or microfilmed, for Arkansas counties are included in the collection at the Commission. Legislation was enacted in Arkansas which required that copies of early county tax records be sent to the state auditor in Little Rock. Where county records were lost, the state auditor's copies are especially valuable. 

  Personal property tax records have been published for a few counties. Tax lists, along with other sources, are being used to reconstruct the lost 1890 federal population census.

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California - The U.S. Internal Revenue Service Assessment List for California, 1862–66, is available on thirty-three microfilm rolls at the California State Library in Sacramento. The lists include names, location and description of business, and tax rate for individuals taxed.

Similar to tax records in their yearly listing of residents are the “Great Register” of California, which are miscellaneous county voting registers that exist from the mid-nineteenth century. The registers were compiled and printed about every two years. Before 1900, they show name, address, and age (but the age may remain the same after a man's first entry). From about the mid-1800s, physical descriptions are included, but after the 1898 register, only the name, address, party affiliation, and sometimes occupation are listed.

Before 1892, the lists are county-wide, but usually alphabetical only by first letter or surname. They are particularly valuable for foreign-born voters, as the date and court of naturalization are listed. Copies of the "Great Registers," (1866–1944) are at the California State Library, which also has alphabetical card file abstracts for some of the earlier registers for San Francisco. Records from 1946 are with the individual county registrars of voters.

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Colorado - Tax records in Colorado may be found in a variety of locations. Some are located in the treasurer's office at the county level, while others have been moved to libraries, historical societies or the state archives. Others have been lost or, with permission of the state of Colorado, destroyed. A few dating to the 1870s or earlier have survived. The researcher may wish to check for an extant WPA Historical Records Survey (see County Resources) for the county of interest. Otherwise, a search on an individual basis will be required.

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Connecticut - Taxes were levied for personal property and land through most of Connecticut's history. The town assessor (or lister) made annual lists or rates of all taxables. This generated a considerable number of tax lists across time, but the Connecticut State Library has a list of various tax records still at the town clerk's offices. The Connecticut Historical Society and the genealogical collections throughout the state have some records.

A highly valuable tax record for Connecticut is the U.S. Direct Tax for 1798. The records are extant for nearly half of the towns with some also having rate lists for 1813, 1814, 1815, and 1816. The original booklets indicate rate based on land, dwellings, and personal property, the latter of which is usually itemized. Later years indicate out-of-state owners. The records have not been microfilmed as a group, but the originals can be researched at the Connecticut Historical Society.

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Delaware - Early tax or assessment lists for the three Delaware counties are found at the Delaware State Archives and start in 1726 for Kent, 1738 for New Castle, and 1769 for Sussex. Some earlier records are at the Historical Society of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia: 1693 for all three counties and an incomplete list for 1696 for New Castle County. For the former, see “Provincial Tax List of the Three Lower Counties 1693” in The Pennsylvania Genealogical Magazine 37 (1991): 1–32. It has sometimes been stated that the 1798 U.S. direct tax records for Delaware are at the Historical Society of Delaware. They are not extant, however, and were perhaps destroyed in a fire in Philadelphia.

Some tax records have been published as “censuses” (see Census Records). An 1861 national tax and its corresponding refund records of 1901 are at the state archives. Internal Revenue assessments for Delaware, 1862–66, are on microfilm at the National Archives-Mid Atlantic Region. Modern tax information should be sought in the county courthouses.

Books of Interest: Kent County Assessments, 1727-1850. Dover, DE: State of Delaware Division of Historical and Cultural Affairs, Bureau of Archives and Records Management, 1984. Internal Revenue Assessment Lists for Delaware, 1862-1866. 8 reels. Washington, DC: National Archives, 1968.Delaware 1782 Tax Assessment and Census Lists. Ralph D. Nelson, ed. Wilmington, DE: Delaware Genealogical Society, 1994.

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District of Columbia - Assessment records for the District of Columbia from about 1814 to 1940 are in Record Group 351, Records of the Government of the District of Columbia, National Archives and Records Administration, Washington, D.C. 20408. Some lists are housed in the Washingtoniana Division of the Martin Luther King, Jr., Memorial Library. Some lists cover Georgetown and Washington County.

Tax books for the District of Columbia date back to 1880. Earlier records for the city of Washington cover 1824 to 1879. See NARA microfilm publication M605 for microfilm copies of Records of the City of Georgetown (D.C.), 1800–79.

Typed copies of Georgetown real property assessments for 1783, 1793, and 1798 are at the Peabody Room of the Georgetown Regional Library, Wisconsin Avenue and R Street, N.W., Washington D.C. The Maryland Historical Society in Baltimore (see Maryland—Archives, Libraries, and Societies) has the original District of Columbia U.S. District Tax of 1798. Microfilm copies of it are available at the Georgetown Regional Library of the District of Columbia Archives (see Archives, Libraries, and Societies) and at the Maryland Archives in Annapolis.

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Florida - Early tax rolls, especially between census years, can be a gold mine for the fortunate researcher. Most existing rolls can be found in the counties of origin, but the Flordia State Archives also has some bound volumes sent to the state comptroller during the period 1829-81. Normal information includes the taxpayer's name, land ownership, number of white males (above taxable age, 21) and slaves, horses, wagons, and other taxable items of personal property such as jewelry, watches, musical instruments, and carriages. Many of the counties' records in the series are incomplete, but there are some in the Florida State Archives that the originating counties no longer have. This valuable resource is not indexed. It must be searched in the county, at the Florida State Archives, or both.

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Georgia - None of Georgia's colonial tax records have survived. Surviving Georgia tax records begin on a county basis in the late 1780s. By 1783 Georgia tax laws provided for taxing land according to its quality and quantity, and male polls were white males over twenty-one. Other taxes were imposed on town lots, slaves, and free persons of color, buildings and improvements, merchandise, lawyers, and doctors. The poll tax on all adult males made Georgia tax digests good census substitutes and supplements.

   The Georgia Department of Archives and History has other tax digests for 1789–1817 which are not included in the above publication. A complete set of originals for the years 1872 to the present is at the Georgia Department of Archives and History . Some earlier digests are on microfilm at the Georgia Archives and the FHL.

List of Tax Acts of Georgia from 1780-1817:

Legislative Activity for Taxes: 1817-1850

• 1818-1839: The acts during these years are all based on the tax act of 1817. These tax acts continually revive preceding acts, often with amendments. Many simple tax questions can be answered by a glance at the 1817 law. Complex or refined questions may require consulting the specific act for the year in question and then backward through a chain of revived acts.
• 1840: This act revives the Tax Act of 1804, with amendments. This was probably an attempt at simplification. The stated intention was to make this act permanent.
• 1842: This act increased the taxes of 1840 by 25%.
• 1843-50: The final years of the first half of the nineteenth century the Georgia Legislature re-enacted the 1840 act, which itself was a revival of the 1804 act. The 1847 act did require that taxes be paid in the county in which the land was held in jurisdiction. Previously, the tax had been paid in the county of residence.

There is a online tax database for Georgia Tax Index, 1789-99 an index of tax records held by the state government from 1789-99.

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Hawaii - The state archives of Hawaii has both personal and property tax records for: Hawaii (1855-93); Kauai (1855-92); Lanai (1855-92); Maui (1887-92); Molokai (1855-92); and Oahu (1855-1929). These tax records are incomplete and are unindexed. The early tax records are a poll tax only. The tax records were taken on a division basis with each island divided into many divisions. It is necessary to know the correct division in order to search these records.

Property tax records and tax maps were moved from state to county control about 1980. Tax maps dating as early as the 1920's are on microfilm at the Real Property Assessment Office. The address for the City and County of Honolulu is 842 Bethel Street, Honolulu, Hawaii 96813.

The Hawaii State Tax Office has a map room with tax maps beginning in 1932. These tax maps give the names of owners, estate heirs, and field books. The field books give the title history and its book and page numbers, which are found in the Bureau of Conveyances.

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Idaho - Most of Idaho's county tax records are still located at the county courthouses. Many early territorial and pre-territorial tax rolls are on file at the Idaho State Historical Society with microfilm copies at the FHL.

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Illinois - The first known tax authorization in Illinois fell under the jurisdiction of the Territory of the United States North West of the River Ohio. The tax was based on every hundred acres of unimproved uncleared prairie or wood land, divided into three classes based on quality of earth surface and soil. The rates were thirty, twenty, and ten cents, to be paid annually. Property with delinquent taxes was sold at public auction. There do not appear to be any surviving tax records from this territorial period.

Beginning with statehood, tax records form a large part of county archival material. The 1819 laws provided the first taxation process, imposing taxes on land, bank stock owned, slaves and indentured negroes or mulattoes, plus a poor tax. The tax was collected by the county with income divided between the county and state. Taxpayers lists were eliminated in 1824, and in 1825 a county road tax and school taxes were enacted.

Original and microfilmed tax records at Illinois Regional Archives Depositories include taxable land lists, assessors books, railroad tax books, road tax records, and collectors books, the earliest record dated 1817. Other county tax records are located in county seats.

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Indiana - Records of county taxes were kept as early at 1842, although most were discarded. Remaining ones would be at the county courthouse. National Archives-Great Lakes Region has records of the Internal Revenue Service for Indiana for 1867 to 1873. These are tax assessment records, arranged by district and then chronologically.

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Iowa - The tax rolls for personal property and real estate were kept by the auditor or the treasurer of each county. A few of these records have been microfilmed and are available at the State Historical Society of Iowa. Original county tax rolls are usually not transferred.

Old age pension tax is a resource genealogists should consider in Iowa. A 1934 directive to collect an old age assistance tax was based on a list of all persons over twenty-one years of age. Although the tax was discontinued in 1936, the information included could be important: name, address, sex, date of birth, place of birth, and names of both parents. Many counties have had these lists microfilmed and they are available through the FHL.

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Kansas - For the most part, tax records remain at the local level. Assessment and tax rolls are kept, permanently, by the County Treasurer's office.

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Kentucky - One of the most valuable sources for early Kentucky until 1892 is its tax records. Most counties have yearly tax records from the date of organization. Some early tax schedules list watercourse, value and acreage of real estate, men over twenty-one, young men between sixteen and twenty-one, slaves, and horses. Extant county tax schedules from the date of organization of the county through 1892 have been microfilmed for most counties and are available from the Kentucky Department for Libraries and Archives and the FHL. Numerous original tax records from 1892 are available at the Kentucky Department for Libraries and Archives. The Kentucky Historical Society has tax records to 1875.

  Kentucky tax lists are arranged by county and date. Within the counties, residents within its districts are grouped together and names usually arranged under the beginning letter of the surname, although these are not in strict alphabetical order. Some early tax records have been published and are available in research libraries.

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Louisiana - Tax records are a valuable but little-used source. Almost everything was taxed: household and personal goods, livestock, slaves, and property. Tax lists can be used as a substitute census, to create complete neighborhoods for a neighborhood study, establish relationships, locate land, and so on. Unfortunately, most of these lists no longer exist in Louisiana, but those that are extant are usually found in the tax assessor's office in the Acadia Parish courthouse.

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Maine - Tax lists exist throughout Maine's history, both before and after statehood. No survey has been done to catalog these, although early ones can be found in Massachusetts. It means reading through town meeting records and determining what is extant in town clerks' offices. Later nineteenth-century taxes may be located at town offices.

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Maryland - Available at the Maryland State Archives with index is a Maryland tax assessment of 1783, which is “more complete” than the 1776 or 1778 “censuses”. Robert W. Barnes and Bettie Stirling Carothers abstracted the 1783 tax list of Baltimore County, Maryland but while it has some omissions, it serves as an index to photocopies of the originals published as Maryland Tax List 1783 Baltimore County from the collection of the Maryland Historical Society (Philadelphia: Historic Publications, 1970). The counties of Calvert, Cecil, Harford, and Talbot are covered by Bettie Carothers, comp., 1783 Tax List of Maryland (Part I: Cecil, Talbot, Harford, and Calvert Counties) (Lutherville, Md.: Pub. by compiler, 1977). Furthermore, there is a two part index to the 1783 list at the state archives, one by names of property owners, the other by names of the tracts.

The earliest tax records are to be found among the proprietary papers, dating from the 1630s. Some early tax records have been published, such as Raymond B. Clark, Jr., and Sara Seth Clark, comps., Baltimore County, Maryland, tax list, 1699-1706. At the Maryland State Archives is a tax list for St. Anne's Parish, Anne Arundel County, 1764-66. Also here are the surviving 1798 U.S. direct tax records, for Anne Arundel County (indexed), Baltimore County and City, and the counties of Caroline, Charles, Harford, Prince George's, Queen Anne's, Saint Mary's, Somerset, and Talbot. Richard J. Cox edited Name Index to the Baltimore City Tax Records: 1798-1808 Of the Baltimore City Archives, (Baltimore: Baltimore City Archives and Records Management Office, 1981).

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Massachusetts - Tax records can be found at both the local and state levels. Massachusetts State Archives has tax returns for 1768 and 1771 as well as incomplete tax valuations for 1775, 1776, 1777 and 1778. The Massachusetts State Library holds them for 1780, 1783, 1784, 1791, 1792, 1793, 1800, 1801, 1810, and 1811.

Earlier taxes for the towns exist as well. Other tax lists may still be available at the town office.
The U.S. Direct Tax of 1798 for most counties remains extant. The surviving originals are at the New England Historic Genealogical Society and accessible on microfilm there and through the FHL

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Michigan - Property tax records at the county level usually date back to the first land records. Either the county treasurer or the register of deeds will be the custodian of these records.

Numerous early tax assessment and general tax rolls are available at the State Archives of Michigan. Organized by county, the records include the name of the owner or occupant of the property, legal description and number of acres, value of land and personal estate, and amount of tax levied. There are tax rolls for some counties for the late 1830s, but most are for the last half of the nineteenth century. National Archives/Great Lakes Region in Chicago holds numerous federal personal property and corporate tax assessment lists for the state of Michigan

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Minnesota - The Minnesota Historical Society holds large numbers of county property tax records, filed under the respective county. Some of the tax records are for specific municipalities. No determination has been made concerning tax record holdings in the county courthouse.

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Mississippi - Local county courthouses maintain original tax records, both real and personal. Microfilm copies of the earlier records are found in the Mississippi Department of Archives and History where the collection is extensive, but there are gaps. Although not many, some counties have published selected years of tax rolls.

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Missouri - The Missouri Historical Society has some original tax records; others can be found in the Western Historical Manuscript Collection at the University of Missouri, but most extant records remain in the office of the clerk of the county court. The Missouri State Archives has microfilmed some tax records for the counties of Boone, Callaway, Cape Girardeau, Chariton, Clay, Cooper, Franklin, Howard, Marion, Monroe, Montgomery, St. Charles, St. Francois, and Ste. Genevieve.

Prior to 1850, purchasers of the federal lands in Missouri were exempt from land taxes for five years after purchase. If one finds an ancestor on a Missouri tax list with livestock, etc., but no land being taxed, the individual may have purchased his land from the government within the preceding five years. Some early delinquent tax lists were sent to the state auditor's office and are now located in the Capitol Fire Documents held by the Missouri State Archives

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Montana - Property taxes in Montana consisted of the name of the individual and a description of the property. Delinquent tax records included the delinquency date, penalty, interest, and amount due. Tax records are arranged by range, township, and section number, and can be obtained by contacting the clerk and recorder at the county courthouse.

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Nebraska - Many tax records are still held at the county level; many taken before 1912 have been sent to the Nebraska State Historical Society. The society is continually collecting county records. At present they have tax records for forty-three counties and assessment records for many others, all for various periods of time. The researcher should contact the archives at the society to learn of its holdings for a particular county before contacting the county. County tax records, real and personal, are located in the office of the county treasurer at the county seat.

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Nevada - The county courthouse where the property was located is the best place to search for tax records. The tax assessment rolls are also at the same place. The assessment rolls are published annually in the local newspapers and should be on file where the newspapers are currently held, either the actual newspaper or the microfilm. The Nevada State Library and Archives, Division of Archives and Records, holds duplicate assessment rolls for all counties for 1891–92, and Ormsby County's assessment rolls from 1862–1950.

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New Hampshire - No thorough survey has yet been attempted to locate all the annual tax lists for New Hampshire towns. They can be found in manuscript collections in public libraries, in town clerk's offices among the pages of the annual town meeting minutes, and at the archives and other repositories. Both residents and nonresidents who owned property or businesses might be listed on the annual assessment, which would indicate the number of voting-age males as polls, and such items as the type and acreage of land, animals, and milling products. Following annual tax lists can provide important clues for ages of males (nearly always 21-50 and occasionally 16-60) and for men moving to or leaving a town, since non-landowners were listed as well, although a few officials were usually exempt.

One important collection of tax records, which has been microfilmed from the originals held at the New Hampshire Records and Archives, is the multivolume nonresident tax lists from 1849-74.
In 1798 a U.S. direct tax was ordered.

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New Jersey - Because New Jersey's pre-1830 federal censuses have not survived, tax records are quite an important substitute for placing persons and families prior to that time. Tax lists arranged by township are available for 1773-1822. The originals, at the New Jersey State Archives, show heads of households, landowners, and single adult males, with information about their property that was taxable, including land, horses, cattle, slaves, and mills. Only about half of the 1773-4 lists are extant, and for some places, such as Sussex County, coverage is very slight. Microfilms of these records are at the state archives, the New Jersey Historical Society, Rutgers University, and the New York Genealogical and Biographical Society. The 1784 tax lists for thirty-eight municipalities (predominantly in southern New Jersey) are the only ones to indicate the size of a household, with a column for number of whites and a column for number of slaves.

Later tax records are found in the counties starting about 1869-70. Tax lists for some extinct New Jersey municipalities are at the state archives.

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New Mexico - The New Mexico State Records Center and Archives has property tax records for the whole state beginning in the 1870s and continuing to 1912. From 1884 to 1912, the records have been microfilmed. The remaining portion are original documents. Individual counties have the property tax books from 1913 to the present.

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New York - Scattered town and precinct tax records for a few years in the 1770s and 1780s and nearly complete lists for the whole state, 1799-1804, are at the New York State Archives, although for the latter period the surviving 1804 rolls cover only delinquent taxes of nonresidents. New York City tax records are at the Municipal Archives. Some early assessment rolls have been published in The New York Genealogical and Biographical Record, such as those for New York City, 1730, in volume 95; New Rochelle, 1767, in volume 107; and Ulster County, 1709-21, in volume 62. See also volumes 43-44 of the New-York Historical Society's Collections for New York City assessments 1695-99.

A few counties such as Ontario have retained their early tax records, but most do not have them until about 1850 or even later. Many old tax lists are to be found in manuscript collections. Dutchess County is fortunate to have a long series of eighteenth century tax records. Some of the 1798 U.S. Direct Tax records survive for New York. 

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North Carolina - That all governments require money to operate was well known to those who established North Carolina's civil administration. They decided to follow existing methods of taxation by placing levies on people. Prior to 1777, people who were taxed were usually called taxables, tithables, or polls; in essence they were paying a head tax. A 1715 law enacted by the general assembly defined taxables as all free males sixteen years of age and over and all slaves, male and female, aged twelve and over. The law was revised in 1749 and included all white males aged sixteen and over, as well as negroes, mulattoes, mustees or octoroons (offspring of a white and a quadroon), and all persons of mixed blood to the fourth generation, both male and female, who were twelve years of age and older.

  Tax rules remained fairly constant from 1749 until 1777 when the state began applying different criteria, such as restricting the poll tax to freemen who did not own a minimum amount of property, exempting soldiers, changing the minimum age to twenty-one, or taxing only unmarried men. By 1784 the legislature settled on taxing freemen and male servants twenty-one and over and all slaves (male and female) between twelve and fifty. In 1801 all free males over fifty were exempted from the poll tax, and then in 1817 the exemption age was lowered to forty-five. A constitutional amendment in 1835 set age limits at twenty-one to forty-five for free males and twelve to fifty for slaves. The constitution of 1868 included all males between the ages of twenty-one and fifty. Poll taxes were abolished in North Carolina in 1970. Property taxes were levied in North Carolina from 1715 through 1722 and then abolished. They were reinstated in 1777 and remain in effect today. 

  North Carolina tax lists have survived better than those for many states. The lists date from the first decade of the eighteenth century to the present. Microfilmed copies are available at the North Carolina State Archives and FHL, the Many transcriptions are found in the pages of North Carolina's periodicals

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North Dakota - The county auditors have possession of the tax rolls in North Dakota. Some rolls date from statehood and/or organization of the county and may be available at the State Archives and Historical Research Library and the special collection at the Chester Fritz Library.

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Ohio - Tax records for Ohio began as early as 1800. The archives section of the Ohio Historical Society has a collection of original Ohio tax lists from the state auditor's office. They include lists from the county's organization to 1838, usually arranged by county and township. They are not indexed. County courthouses hold various tax records that have not been inventoried. They are in the office of the county auditor or the county records manager. The FHL has microfilm copies of all known extant tax records 1800-38 for Ohio.

The National Archives-Great Lakes Region retains numerous federal tax records for Ohio. These include assessment books for 1867-73 and corporate and personal records for District 10, Toledo, and District 11, Columbus.

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Oklahoma - Heavy spring rains with severe flooding in 1902 awakened Oklahoma's citizens to the need for better roads. Territorial laws placed responsibility with townships, and a road overseer was to be elected for each district. General property tax and some funds from liquor licenses collected by counties and townships were used to finance the building of public roads along section lines. A road tax was required, along with the requirement that all males between the ages of twenty-one and forty-five donate four eight-hour days a year to work on highways. Those who did not work or provide a substitute were fined $5 for each absence.

The county treasurer or assessor may have tax or assessment records. Some tax records are stored in museums, historical, and/or genealogical societies' repositories. Published tax records for Oklahoma are almost nonexistent. Some duplicated copies of county tax records are stored in the Oklahoma Department of Libraries, State Archives Division for security purposes, but are not available for research. Koplowitz, Guide to the Historical Records of Oklahoma, indicates location of county records, including those of tax and assessments.

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Oregon - Some assessment or tax rolls from 1845 to 1900 are deposited at the Oregon State Archives, but most tax records are still at county courthouses. The Archives also has a useful research tool from the state treasurer entitled, “Reports of Estates, 1903-1913,” which contains the date of death and the names of heirs of those who died testate. This record is arranged by county, then by year.

Oregon counties are required to keep their tax rolls through 1905. All subsequent records must be kept for fifty years before they are destroyed. The exception to this is for years ending in 0 or 5, which are kept for research samples.

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Pennsylvania - Late eighteenth-century tax records for various counties, 1765–1791, were published in Pennsylvania Archives, 3d series, vols. 11–32.

Among the few surviving 1798 U.S. Direct Tax lists are those for Pennsylvania. They were microfilmed by the National Archives and are available at the Mid-Atlantic Region in Philadelphia and at the Pennsylvania State Archives. Indexes have been published for Washington and Lancaster counties.

Tax records are typically found in the county tax assessment offices but may also be in the county commissioners' office or with the prothonotary. The state archives has microfilms for some of these records (1715–1930s). Some assessment records have found their way into manuscript collections of county historical societies and the Historical Society of Pennsylvania as well as at the Philadelphia City Archives.

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Rhode Island - Tax records pre-date the Revolution and may be found at the town clerk's office, Rhode Island State Archives, or the Rhode Island Historical Society. The clerk's office usually has an inventory of tax list holdings. No other attempt has been made to catalog or inventory tax records, though when they exist on a year-by-year basis, they provide good evidence for the social status of a family and its presence in a town when no land is owned.

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South Carolina - With the exception of a single tax list from 1733 and occasional lists of tax collectors, no colonial tax records of South Carolina have survived. Parishes and townships functioned as tax districts until 1800; circuit court districts and their counties also functioned as tax districts from 1785–1800. Many of these tax lists are incomplete, the known tax lists, 1783–99, are as follows: 

• Christ Church Parish, 1784, 1786, 1788, and 1793–99
• Prince Frederick's Parish, 1784 and 1786
• Prince George's Parish, 1786–87
• Prince William's Parish, 1798
• St. Andrew's Parish, 1784–85, 1787, 1789, 1791, and 1795
• St. Bartholomew's Parish, 1783–87 and 1798
• St. Helena's Parish, 1798
• St. James Goose Creek, 1796
• St. John's Berkeley Parish, 1793
• St. Luke's Parish, 1798–99
• St. Paul's Parish, 1783, 1785–96, and 1798–99
• Ninety-Six District, 1787
• OrangeburghDistrict, 1787
• Lancaster County in Camden District, 1797
• Lexington County in Orangeburgh District, 1788. 

  Directories for the city of Charleston date from 1782. These directories may help locate a Charleston ancestor who does not appear in other records. They are housed at the Charleston Library Society 

• Jury List - The jury lists include men eligible to serve on juries and were compiled from tax lists. The Jury Lists of South Carolina, 1778–1779  is accepted as proof of the identity of Revolutionary War patriots. The best available substitutes for colonial tax lists are jury lists.
• Voter Registration Lists - Voter registration lists, 1867, 1868, and 1898 are another valuable substitute for tax records. The lists from 1867 and 1868 are particularly useful for Black American research because the newly freed slaves registered to vote; many blacks make their first in the voter registration lists. Although voter registration was conducted by counties, the originals of the 1867, 1868, and 1898 lists are at the South Carolina Department of Archives and History; counties maintained copies for their records.

   Most districts/counties have some tax records dating from 1800 to the present, with the majority of tax records dating from 1865. A fairly complete series from 1824, mostly of the Low Country districts, is available at the South Carolina Department of Archives and History. The South Carolina Department of Archives and History has originals of most extant tax lists, and microfilmed copies of county tax records are available at the South Carolina Department of Archives and History and the FHL.

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South Dakota - Most tax lists which have survived are housed at the county seat in auditor's office. A few early tax records have been microfilmed and remain at the South Dakota State Historical Society, including those of “Old Stanley County,” comprised of present-day Stanley, Haakon and Jackson counties. The microfilms for tax records are not always easy to read, but can include county commissions work in selecting juries, docket books, and real and personal property taxes. Others at the archives include Huron; Beadle County (1883-1902); Edmunds (1887-1924); Roberts (1884-1929); Stanley (1891-1930); Union (1870-1901); and delinquent tax lists from Walworth (before 1899).

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Tennessee - Tennessee tax lists can be used to locate families, document historic properties and study community history. Early tax lists generally include all white males over 21 and indicate whether they owned land or slaves. They usually do not provide other personal information.

The tax lists enumerated for Bedford County for the years: 1812, 1814, 1836-1839, 1875-1900 ; are available on microfilm at the Tennessee State Library and Archives. They are generally filed with each county's records, but some early lists are in a separate collection. To order a search of the records by mail, follow this link [EMAIL]

   The 1796 Constitution levied taxes on “every freeman of the age of twenty-one years and upward possessing a freehold in the county wherein he may vote, and being an inhabitant of this State, and every freeman being an inhabitant of any one county in the State six months immediately the day of the election, shall be entitled to vote....”

Many early surviving tax records were published in an effort to replace the missing federal censuses. Original extant tax records are preserved in the respective county courthouse as well as in the Tennessee State Library and Archives, where a card index exists for tax records in its collection pre-dating 1835, arranged by county, date, and district. 

Original tax schedules for most Tennessee counties for 1836 through 1839 are available at the Tennessee State Library and Archives.

The 1891 tax lists of male inhabitant voters in each county were recently found. Available on microfilm at the Tennessee State Library and Archives, these nine reels are arranged alphabetically within each district in each county. Tax records from trustees office in counties are available on microfilm as well.

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Texas - Texas tax records constitute one of the most complete sets of available records generated at the county level (by the Commissioners Court) because these documents are maintained by the state. These lists may only include approximately sixty percent of eligible males over the age of twenty-one. Persons exempted from taxes included native Americans, "idiots," "incompetents," and those exempted because of age. This final category of exemptions varied over time. Years without an older age exemption were 1840 and 1862-70. Between 1841-44 exemptions began at forty-five years; in 1845 and from 1850-61 the upward age was set at fifty years. In 1837, 1848, and 1849 the limit was established as fifty-five, and in 1846-7, and 1871 the upward limit was set at sixty years.

Texas Ad Valorem (poll, personal, and real property) tax records for 1836 through 1976 are available in microfilm at the Texas State Library from the date of respective county organization; these are arranged by county and date and are somewhat alphabetized within each division. Microfilm copies are housed in the Genealogy Section. Tax lists for the various counties from creation to 1901 may be borrowed through interlibrary loan. Tax records through 1901-1947 are readily accessible, but not on interlibrary loan. Those for 1948 through 1976 can be obtained upon request. 

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Utah - Some early tax records have been published as part of a state census, but microfilm copies of manuscript transcripts of crop records, school assessments, and property assessment are available for many counties on microfilm through the FHL and the Utah State Archives.

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Vermont - Grand lists are the annual assessment for town tax purposes, and they were taken every year for every town in Vermont. They are the only taxes organized enough to be of genealogical use. Many of them are extant, but they are not easy to find. Sometimes they appear as part of the proprietor or town meeting records (which may be in the town records microfilms at Vermont Public Records Division or the FHL) or sometimes in separate books (which might be in town clerks' offices or vaults). The assessment might be for a poll (twenty-one year old male or eligible voter—“Freeman” in Vermont), acreage, buildings, cattle, yards of material produced, and clapboards milled. People taxed were not necessarily landowners.

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Virginia - Virginia's tax records are a rich—and largely untapped—resource. During the Colonial period, there were three basic forms of taxation: the quitrent, the parish levy, and the poll tax.

  The quitrent was a land tax that had its roots in English manorial society where “the land obligations due the manor, such as plowing and haying the lord's land, were computed to an annual money payment. Upon payment, the obligations were `quit' for the year.”  Those living south of the Rappahannock River paid a quitrent to the Crown. An original, incomplete list of land owners for the region in 1704 is in the Public Record Office in London and has been published several times, not always reliably. Residents of the Northern Neck, between the Rappahannock and Potomac Rivers, paid quitrents to the agents of Lord Fairfax. Many original rent rolls of the Fairfax proprietary are housed at the Huntington Library in San Marino, California. Extant original rent rolls and facsimiles for Virginia are available at The Library of Virginia.

  The parish levy was an annual tax paid by all tithables for support of their ministers, maintenance of the parishes' glebe lands (the parsonage and lands producing income for the parish), and support of the poor of the parish.

  The poll tax, except for a brief period from 1645 to 1648, was the main source of revenue for the colony of Virginia. The annual poll tax was computed by dividing the total expenses of the colony and individual counties by the total number of tithables. The result was levied on each tithable.

  Tithables were variously defined during the colonial period. The first definition, in 1624, was “every male head above sixteen years of age.” All agricultural workers were added in 1629. In 1643 all males and black females aged sixteen or over were tithables. Imported male servants of any age were added in 1649.

  The definition of “tithable” was rewritten in 1658. Tithables included free males aged sixteen or over, imported blacks of either sex, imported white male servants, and Indian servants of either sex; white women employed in agriculture were added in 1662. Complaints from planters with increasing numbers of indentured servants and slaves led to a revision in 1680 that declared Virginia-born male slaves taxable at age twelve and imported male servants taxable at age fourteen; nonwhite women and free males remained taxable at age sixteen.

  The laws of Virginia were revised in 1705. From then until 1782, all males and nonwhite females aged sixteen or over were tithables. Wives of free nonwhite males were added in 1723.

  Virginia's tax system changed after the Revolutionary War to include taxing land and personal property in 1782, with further revision in 1787. The bulk of those tax lists prior to 1850 survive and are available on microfilm at The Library of Virginia.

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Washington - Washington has never had a state income tax. The only tax records are for real and personal property, which were both levied at the county level. The records are held by the county assessors and the county treasurers. In some cases, the Washington State Archives' regional branches have acquired older records. These branches are excellent places to begin searching for county tax records. Not all county tax records have survived. Inheritance tax records are on microfilm at the Washington State Archives from 1901 until the tax was discontinued in 1981.

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West Virginia - While people were taxed in Virginia prior to 1782, not many tax lists for that early period have survived, and the originals that have survived are at the Virginia State Library. Colonial period taxes were imposed on the personal property of males who were twenty-one and older, and called "tithables." While there is no comprehensive list or collection of early tax lists, many fragments are printed throughout Virginia genealogical literature

West Virginia has one of the most complete sets of old tax records in existence. Land tax records dating from 1782 to 1936 for all counties, with some through 1959, are available at the Archives and History Library in Charleston. Most county clerks have duplicate copies in their offices. As noted in the section on Virginia, the Virginia State Library has the original unindexed personal property tax records from 1782 to 1863.

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Wisconsin - The earliest tax records in Wisconsin appear to be for real estate. Brown County has an extant tax roll for 1824. Tax rolls are kept by the county treasurer for each county. Many of these records have been transferred to the appropriate Area Research Centers.

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Wyoming - The Wyoming State Archives does not have all of the county tax and assessment records. The county assessor and treasurer use their own discretion as to whether their records are sent to the archives. In order to check the records on file at the Wyoming State Archives, the researcher must know the county (or general area) and the years that the ancestor resided in Wyoming. If tax records are not at the archives, they are likely still at the local courthouses.

Wyoming county tax records may be arranged chronologically and then alphabetically by school district. These records include assessment rolls inventory and appraisement of personal and real property for tax purposes. The total amount of tax is then apportioned under the various county and state taxes. Tables list name and address, legal description of the real property, value of real and personal property, amount owed for specific taxes, and date paid.

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