The latest By The Numbers report on local tax burden is out. Guess what it finds:

Charlotte’s local taxes and fees totaled $2,360 per resident for the 2009 budget year. That total helps the state’s largest city rank No. 1 on the tax-burden list for the 10th straight year. … “The typical resident of the median county in North Carolina paid $1,304 in taxes and fees to county and municipal governments in the 2009 budget year,” said report author Michael Lowrey, a JLF policy analyst. “That’s up slightly from an inflation-adjusted $1,298 figure for 2008. But as a percentage of personal income, the number dipped slightly from 4.77 percent to 4.56 percent.”

Lowrey cautioned against misreading the numbers. “It’s likely that the figures actually understate the impact of local taxes and fees,” he explained. “Personal income figures are based on the 2008 calendar year, which showed increases for the state as a whole. The worst of the economic downturn is not captured in these figures.” … North Carolina collected $17 billion in state tax and fee revenues from July 1, 2008, to June 30, 2009. That’s 5.2 percent of state residents’ personal income. Local governments collected an additional $14.9 billion in property, sales, and other taxes and fees. That’s another 4.6 percent of personal income.

“Combined, they represent a state and local tax and fee burden of about 9.8 percent,” Lowrey said. “Federal collections raise the total tax burden on North Carolinians to approximately 27.1 percent of personal income, on average.”

Again — did you get your money’s worth in vital government services?