Addiction Markets

  But if you want to outlaw this harmful activity [licensed gambling], you have to find a way to replace 6.4% of Maryland’s budget, which is slightly less than the entire amount the state brings in from corporate taxes.

A fraction of the proceeds of losing bets from a fraction of Maryland's citizens contributes almost the same to state services -- EMS, education, road maintenance, etc -- than the total corporate taxes levied on all businesses.

Do I misunderstand, or is this just actually incredible?

No to both. You probably understand it but it’s not that amazing. States don’t tax corporations much (it’s often fairly easy to move your company to the next state over if taxes are lower) the federal government does. They tax things like sales, homes, gambling and other vices, etc.

Good idea to impose piguouvian taxes, not a good idea to impose sale taxes as that's regressive.

Property tax's a mixed bag since it taxes both land and building when ideally you only want to tax land.

States that impose income taxes are choosing not to imposes taxes elsewhere like land, which is the ideal tax. Income taxes have negative consequences since you're taxing economic activity.

Why shouldn't we tax the buildings? It seems like there's lots of real estate out there with relatively moderate land value but astronomical building value.