Given that the D.C. Council has recently considered ways of increasing revenue during its budget working sessions, this chart of the week examines how the city’s tax revenue sources have changed over time.
As the chart above shows, between 2010 and 2021, real property taxes made up the largest share of the District’s total tax revenue. In 2010, they accounted for 36.4 percent of total revenue; by 2021, that share had declined to 33.1 percent. However, by 2022 and 2023, real property taxes no longer accounted for the largest share of the District’s tax revenue.
Meanwhile, the District’s reliance on income taxes has grown. In 2010, individual income taxes comprised 22.2 percent of total revenue. By 2023, that share had risen to 30.5 percent.
The District’s increasing reliance on income taxes is not the only noteworthy tax revenue-related trend. Two other trends deserve mention. The first is that the number of tax filers has dropped below its 2019 pre-pandemic level. In 2019, roughly 371,700 people filed taxes in D.C., and nearly 320,000 filed returns with taxable income. By 2022, both numbers had fallen. Approximately 361,700 people filed taxes in the city, and 314,000 filed returns with taxable income. The second is a recent trend in withholding taxes. Between April 2024 and April 2025, withholding taxes declined by 1.2 percent—which is consistent with the District’s recent sluggish growth in resident employment.
Data notes:
2024 D.C. Tax Facts can be accessed here. The percentages in the graph do not sum to 100 because not all revenue-generating taxes are shown.