Wisconsin
Democrats: President Biden Delivers for Wisconsin While Trump Backs Billionaires Over Working Families
May 21, 2024
Today, President Biden’s visit to Racine, Wisconsin will underscore how his economic agenda is uplifting Wisconsin families by creating good-paying jobs, cutting costs, and building the middle class. Just last week, Trump spent his short time in Wisconsin lying about President Biden’s economic wins, because he knows that his only defense against President Biden’s successful record is to lie in a desperate attempt to hide how he failed Wisconsin families.
Tax Cuts Fail Again in Kansas and Wisconsin; Lawmakers Should Pivot to Proven Investments
March 6, 2024 • By Neva Butkus
The governors of both Kansas and Wisconsin recently stood up to legislators who tried to push through costly tax cuts that would overwhelmingly benefit the most well-off. Lawmakers in those states and others should shift their focus from expensive, top-heavy tax cuts to tried and true policies that help middle-class and low-income families.
Video: ITEP’s Neva Butkus Discusses Wisconsin’s Tax Code on ABC News
January 29, 2024
"What this really comes down to is fairness," Neva Butkus, a state policy analyst for the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy said. She contributed to "Who Pays?," the seventh edition of a periodic analysis offered by ITEP of tax policies in all 50 states.
Wisconsin: Who Pays? 7th Edition
January 9, 2024 • By ITEP Staff
Wisconsin Download PDF All figures and charts show 2024 tax law in Wisconsin, presented at 2023 income levels. Senior taxpayers are excluded for reasons detailed in the methodology. Our analysis includes nearly all (99.4 percent) state and local tax revenue collected in Wisconsin. State and local tax shares of family income Top 20% Income Group […]
Wisconsin Budget Project: Tax Shift Would Hike Taxes for People with Low Incomes and Give a Big Tax Cut to the Top 1%
February 7, 2022
Last month, an influential group of lobbyists released a proposal to raise Wisconsin’s sales tax to 8%, making it the highest state sales tax in the country, and eliminate the state individual income tax, Wisconsin’s biggest source of revenue. The plan would result in the largest tax cuts going to white households, with households of color […]
Wisconsin Budget Project: Wisconsin’s Billion-Dollar Tax Cut Leaves out a Huge Chunk of Households
September 9, 2021
Shutting low-income families out of the tax cut will further skew Wisconsin’s tax system, which already requires people with low incomes to pay a higher share of their incomes in state and local taxes than people with much higher earnings. The lowest 20% of Wisconsin households by income, in which households earn less than $22,000 […]
Urban Milwaukee: Republicans Discover the Middle Class
February 14, 2019
An analysis of all the tax breaks in Wisconsin from 2011 through 2016 by the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy found the average tax reduction was $10,015 for the top 1 percent of taxpayers, and $1,806 for the next 4 percent of taxpayers versus $379 for the middle 20 percent of taxpayers and just $175 for the bottom 20 percent of taxpayers.
Wisconsin Budget Project: Wisconsin’s Tax System Requires the Least from Those Who Have the Most
November 21, 2018
Wisconsin residents with the lowest incomes pay about a third more of their income in state and local taxes than the wealthiest residents, according to new figures from the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy. The poorest 20% of Wisconsin residents—a group with an average income of $14,700—pays 10.1 cents out of every $1 of their income in state and local taxes on average. In comparison, the richest residents of Wisconsin, who have an average income of $1.2 million, pay just 7.7 cents out of every $1 in income in state and local taxes.
Wisconsin: Who Pays? 6th Edition
October 17, 2018 • By ITEP Staff
WISCONSIN Read as PDF WISCONSIN STATE AND LOCAL TAXES Taxes as Share of Family Income Top 20% Income Group Lowest 20% Second 20% Middle 20% Fourth 20% Next 15% Next 4% Top 1% Income Range Less than $22,100 $22,100 to $39,400 $39,400 to $65,000 $65,000 to $100,300 $100,300 to $198,000 $198,000 to $512,600 over $512,600 […]
Tax Cuts 2.0 – Wisconsin
September 26, 2018 • By ITEP Staff
The $2 trillion 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) includes several provisions set to expire at the end of 2025. Now, GOP leaders have introduced a bill informally called “Tax Cuts 2.0” or “Tax Reform 2.0,” which would make the temporary provisions permanent. And they falsely claim that making these provisions permanent will benefit […]
Building on Momentum from Recent Years, 2018 Delivers Strengthened Tax Credits for Workers and Families
July 10, 2018 • By Aidan Davis
Despite some challenging tax policy debates, a number of which hinged on states’ responses to federal conformity, 2018 brought some positive developments for workers and their families. This post updates a mid-session trends piece on this very subject. Here’s what we have been following:
Wisconsin Budget Project: Giving Young Immigrants a Pathway to Citizenship Would Boost Wisconsin’s Farm Economy
December 20, 2017
According to a new report from the Wisconsin Budget Project, passing the Dream Act and establishing a pathway to citizenship for immigrant youth would help Wisconsin farms and communities by: Expanding Wisconsin’s economy by up to $600 million a year by improving the access that immigrants have to educational and economic opportunity; Increasing state and […]
Wisconsin Budget Project: Dream Act Would Boost Wisconsin Economy and Tax Revenues: Revoking DACA Hurts Both
December 20, 2017
There are 10,000 young immigrants potentially eligible for DACA who call Wisconsin home. They currently contribute a total of $16 million to local and state taxes annually through sales and excise taxes, property taxes, and income tax. Read more here
How the Final GOP-Trump Tax Bill Would Affect Wisconsin Residents’ Federal Taxes
December 16, 2017 • By ITEP Staff
The final tax bill that Republicans in Congress are poised to approve would provide most of its benefits to high-income households and foreign investors while raising taxes on many low- and middle-income Americans. The bill would go into effect in 2018 but the provisions directly affecting families and individuals would all expire after 2025, with […]
How the House and Senate Tax Bills Would Affect Wisconsin Residents’ Federal Taxes
December 6, 2017 • By ITEP Staff
The House passed its “Tax Cuts and Jobs Act” November 16th and the Senate passed its version December 2nd. Both bills would raise taxes on many low- and middle-income families in every state and provide the wealthiest Americans and foreign investors substantial tax cuts, while adding more than $1.4 trillion to the deficit over ten years. The graph below shows that both bills are skewed to the richest 1 percent of Wisconsin residents.
How the Revised Senate Tax Bill Would Affect Wisconsin Residents’ Federal Taxes
November 14, 2017 • By ITEP Staff
The Senate tax bill released last week would raise taxes on some families while bestowing immense benefits on wealthy Americans and foreign investors. In Wisconsin, 47 percent of the federal tax cuts would go to the richest 5 percent of residents, and 9 percent of households would face a tax increase, once the bill is fully implemented.
How the House Tax Proposal Would Affect Wisconsin Residents’ Federal Taxes
November 6, 2017 • By ITEP Staff
The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, which was introduced on November 2 in the House of Representatives, includes some provisions that raise taxes and some that cut taxes, so the net effect for any particular family’s federal tax bill depends on their situation. Some of the provisions that benefit the middle class — like lower tax rates, an increased standard deduction, and a $300 tax credit for each adult in a household — are designed to expire or become less generous over time. Some of the provisions that benefit the wealthy, such as the reduction and eventual repeal of the estate…
Wisconsin Budget Project: What the Trump Tax Plan Means for Wisconsin Taxpayers, in Six Charts
October 17, 2017
The tax plan being advanced by President Trump and Republican members of Congress would mostly benefit the extremely rich, despite initial claims by proponents that it would be targeted at members of the middle class...Using data from an analysis by the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, we have prepared six charts that show how the Trump-GOP tax framework would affect Wisconsin taxpayers:
GOP-Trump Tax Framework Would Provide Richest One Percent in Wisconsin with 61.2 Percent of the State’s Tax Cuts
October 4, 2017 • By ITEP Staff
The “tax reform framework” released by the Trump administration and congressional Republican leaders on September 27 would not benefit everyone in Wisconsin equally. The richest one percent of Wisconsin residents would receive 61.2 percent of the tax cuts within the state under the framework in 2018. These households are projected to have an income of at least $525,900 next year. The framework would provide them an average tax cut of $75,550 in 2018, which would increase their income by an average of 4.2 percent.
State Rundown 9/28: Wisconsin Budget Finalized, Oklahoma Special Session Underway
September 28, 2017 • By ITEP Staff
This week, Wisconsin's leaders finalized the state budget at last, while those in Oklahoma began a special session to close their state's revenue shortfall. Soda tax fights made news in Illinois and Pennsylvania. And New Jersey offered Amazon $5 billion in tax subsidies.
State Rundown 9/13: The Year of Unprecedented State Budget Impasses Continues
September 13, 2017 • By ITEP Staff
This week, Pennsylvania lawmakers risk defaulting on payments due to their extremely overdue budget and Illinois legislators will borrow billions to start paying their backlog of unpaid bills. Governing delves into why there were more such budget impasses this year than in any year in recent memory. And Oklahoma got closure from its Supreme Court on whether closing special tax exemptions counts as "raising taxes" (it doesn't).
State Rundown 9/6: Most Statehouses Quiet, Many Pondering Harvey’s Impacts
September 7, 2017 • By ITEP Staff
It's been a quiet week for tax policy in most states, though lawmakers are still making noise in Pennsylvania, where a budget agreement is still needed, and in Wisconsin, where legislators are searching for the will to raise revenue for the state's ailing transportation infrastructure. In our "What We're Reading" section you'll find interesting reading on the fiscal fallout of Hurricane Harvey, as well as an in-depth series on how states' disaster response needs are likely to continue to increase.
State Rundown 8/31: Modernizing Taxes is Sometimes a Sprint, Sometimes a Marathon
August 31, 2017 • By ITEP Staff
Tax and budget debates are progressing at different paces in different parts of the country this week. In Connecticut and Wisconsin, lawmakers hope to finally settle their budget and tax differences soon. In South Dakota, a court case that could finally enable states to enforce their sales taxes on online retailers inches slowly closer to the U.S. Supreme Court.
In Wisconsin 46.0 Percent of Trump’s Proposed Tax Cuts Go to People Making More than $1 Million
August 17, 2017 • By ITEP Staff
A tiny fraction of the Wisconsin population (0.5 percent) earns more than $1 million annually. But this elite group would receive 46.0 percent of the tax cuts that go to Wisconsin residents under the tax proposals from the Trump administration. A much larger group, 42.7 percent of the state, earns less than $45,000, but would receive just 5.6 percent of the tax cuts.
State Rundown 8/9: And Then There Were Three
August 9, 2017 • By ITEP Staff
This week, Rhode Island lawmakers agreed on a budget, leaving only three states – Connecticut, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin – without complete budgets. Texas, however, remains in special session and West Virginia could go back into another special session over tax issues. And in New York City, the mayor proposes a tax on the wealthy to […]
