Maybe it’s because we’ve suffered through a recession. Maybe it’s because tax rates are lower. Maybe it’s because we’ve hired better accountants. Or maybe it’s because we’re better cheaters.

For any or all of those reasons, South Carolina taxpayers are sending less money to the federal government.

The Internal Revenue Service collected $15 billion in taxes from the state during 2003, the fourth consecutive year that collections were down.

Federal tax payments in the state declined 5 percent between 1998 and 2003. At the same time, collections rose 10 percent nationwide.

The biggest decline was in taxes paid by South Carolina corporations.

Slightly more than 74,000 S.C. corporations filed federal tax returns last year, up 15 percent from five years ago.

But what those companies paid in taxes fell by 34 percent in the past five years, to $723 million.

At the same time, corporate tax payments fell 9 percent nationwide.

Corporate income taxes are tied much more closely to economic conditions than taxes paid by individuals. Nearly everybody with a job pays taxes, but companies generally only have tax liability when they earn profits.

But taxes paid by individual filers also have been falling. The IRS received nearly 1.8 million individual filings last year, a 4 percent increase from 1998. That rise mirrors the state’s population growth.

Individual tax payments reached $12.9 billion last year, nearly the same as 2002 but down 2 percent from 1998.

— Chris Roberts