April 29, 2015

Wisconsin Budget Project: Do All Taxpayers Get the Same Benefit from the Governor’s Income Tax Proposals?

ITEP Work in Action

In his State of the State address last week, Governor Walker talked about two tax cuts he plans to make using the state’s projected surplus: a $406 million cut in property taxes and an income tax cut. With respect to the smaller portion of that two-part plan the Governor said:

“…we will reduce income taxes by $98.6 million. To ensure we don’t leave anyone behind in our economic recovery, we will target this tax relief to the lowest income tax bracket. If you’re a family of four making $40,000, your savings will be $58. No one will get a bigger savings than that.” (emphasis added)

That’s an accurate description of the income tax rate cut the Governor proposed, but it’s far off the mark with respect to his full plans for cutting state income taxes. The biggest problem with his statement is that Walker didn’t mention that his new special session bill will also cut the Alternative Minimum Tax – a change that benefits high income Wisconsinites and has a price tag that will grow to nearly $51 million per year by 2016-17. Looking at his income tax plan as a whole, a relatively small group of high income tax filers will get far more of the benefit.

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