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Income Tax

Missing Out: Residents with Low Incomes Pay More Under New Budget

July 24, 2019 — State tax policies can be a powerful tool for expanding opportunity and enhancing racial and ethnic equity. But right now, Wisconsin’s tax system calls on the richest residents to pay the smallest share of their income in taxes and requires residents with low and moderate incomes to pay more than their fair share. The legislature rejected Governor Evers’ proposed tax changes in his 2019-21 budget plan that would have reshaped Wisconsin’s tax code to give less of an advantage to the wealthy, by reining in tax breaks for the rich and redirecting the benefits to the middle class and people with low incomes.

Creating a More Equitable Tax Code

February 1, 2019 — Wisconsin’s tax system is a major driver of economic inequality and contributes to the increasing concentration of income and wealth in a few hands—hands that are most likely to be white, due to a long history of racial discrimination. This short report outlines options for using tax policy to help expand opportunity and enhance racial equity.

Building Revenue for Shared Priorities

February 1, 2019 — For Wisconsin’s economy to work for everyone, our state needs to invest in healthy and well-educated workers and communities, public infrastructure, and working families.

The Significant Risk of Never Breaking Even on Foxconn Subsidies

August 16, 2017 — When the Legislative Fiscal Bureau wrote that it would take until at least 2043 for Wisconsin to break even on the Foxconn subsidies, they were summarizing an analysis that used the “best case” assumptions. Using the same methodology and most of the same assumptions, a new Wisconsin Budget Project analysis calculates that other scenarios within the range described by Foxconn could mean that the cost of the state subsidies would not be recovered until 2050 or 2058.

The Big Giveaway is Getting Bigger: Updated Figures Show Growing Tax Credit is Inefficient, Costly

February 2, 2017 — A tax credit that allows manufacturers and some other businesses to pay next to nothing in income taxes has ballooned far beyond original cost estimates and is slanted to favor a small group of wealthy claimants. Most of the credit goes towards reducing income taxes for millionaires, with some tax filers with incomes of over $1 million receiving tax cuts of more than $100,000.