Browsing: Taxes and Transparency

Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers has added the $500 million to his 2023-25 budget to address a “burgeoning crisis” in mental and behavioral health, particularly among Wisconsin children, created by the impact of the pandemic. In his State of the State address, he declared 2023 the Year of Mental Health.

Wisconsin Senate Majority Leader Devin LeMahieu has introduced a plan to transition over four years to a flat 3.25% individual income tax from the current four-bracket structure with a top rate of 7.65%.

He discussed the plan in this office in the Capitol Wednesday with Badger Institute President Mike Nichols in this week’s edition of the Institute’s Free Exchange podcast.

On Dec. 14, the Badger Institute submitted the following comments to Gov. Tony Evers’ statewide listening session tour on the 2023-25 executive budget.

Using billions of emergency pandemic bill dollars to plug gaping holes in their budgets, local governments across Wisconsin and the country are setting themselves up to ask for tax increases or slash services as basic as police and fire protection when the federal funding runs out. 

The Federal government has sent billions of dollars in COVID relief funds to Wisconsin. These taxpayer dollars have been distributed with little oversight or accountability. Do you believe government at all levels should be transparent about who receives this money and how it is being spent?

Twenty months after Congress passed a bill that rained $2.53 billion down on Wisconsin, the governor’s office in sole charge of administering the funding, as well as  legislative audit and budget officials, have almost no idea of how all that money is being spent.

There are numerous ways Wisconsin could move to a flat income tax while benefitting Wisconsinites across the income spectrum. The most obvious solution is to flatten the rate while increasing the standard deduction, as proposed by the Tax Foundation and the Badger Institute in the July 2022 report Tax Reform Options to Improve Wisconsin’s Competitiveness.

Federal dollars drove personal, small bankruptcies down, but Chapter 11s were flat and could spike

Context and Trends

A guide to fair, simple, pro-growth reform

How Wisconsin policy punishes low-income families for getting married – and what to do about it
February 2019

How federal grants are depriving us of our money, liberty and trust in government – and what we can do about it. New book by the Badger Institute urges states to push back.

A policy brief from the Tax Foundation and the Badger Institute.

Residents in high-tax states like ours are stung harder by cap on state/local tax deduction

Economists from Suffolk University’s Beacon Hill Institute for Public Policy have determined through economic modeling that Wisconsin would benefit long-term from further tax cuts. Yet, they’ve found, Wisconsin doesn’t just suffer from high taxes. It suffers from the wrong tax mix.

The problem is far too severe to be solved by increasing taxes on the wealthy or by cutting the bureaucracy. In other words, nothing that resembles business-as-usual will close Wisconsin’s looming budget hole.

The state’s budget problems are due to the cumulative effect of bad budget practices which have persisted for the better part of the past decade, in good and bad economic times.

As Wisconsin’s debt load continues to grow, the tax burden for Wisconsin families and businesses will grow right along with it

Why you’ll pay more at the pump

The future impact in Wisconsin