Wisconsin News and Sports
The Wisconsin Department of Workforce Development is reminding people who received unemployment payments last year to get their tax forms for 2022.
Those forms are now available online from the state’s unemployment aid portal. Taxable income includes state benefits, but also federal pandemic payments as well. All of those will be wrapped up in the 1099 form you get. You can find out more at the DWD website.
They’ve been talking, but there’s still plenty of distance between Governor Tony Evers and Republicans in the Wisconsin Legislature. “It’s good for people to understand that adults can get together and talk about things. That does not mean though that we’re going to agree on everything” Evers said on WKOW’s Capitol City Sunday.
Evers rejected a Republican proposal for a flat tax. “We don’t need to be spending our time and effort to provide the wealthiest of Wisconsinites with some extraordinary large tax cut,” the Democratic governor said.
“It’s important to keep discussions open because tax reform is just vitally important,” said Senate Majority Leader Devin LeMahieu (R-Oostburg).
Evers says the state’s current progressive tax system is a good one. LeMahieu says it’s uncompetitive with other states. “We’re not looking to grow the size of government. We’re looking to make sure that government can continue to operate efficiently and provide services that they need to provide.”
Evers will present his budget message in two weeks. LeMahieu said it’s likely that Republicans will reject that and start from the ground up.
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The Wisconsin State Senate’s Republican leader has released his flat tax plan. Majority Leader Devin LeMahieu (R-Oostburg), who says his goal is to “give everybody a tax cut” using a portion of the state’s projected $6.6 billion budget surplus, released the plan Friday.
“This proposal will fundamentally transform Wisconsin’s individual income tax and keep more money in the pockets of hardworking Wisconsinites,” LeMahieu said in a press release.
The flat tax proposal would cost upwards to $5 billion.
I asked @SenatorDevin how he plans to make up the loss in revenue.
“It may look a little daunting in yrs 3 & 4…but when other states have done this sales tax revenue&other revenues go up. It changes ppls spending habits.” https://t.co/TZZaMS0Elc pic.twitter.com/GwjZ4T1UQD— Emilee Fannon (@Emilee_Fannon) January 13, 2023
It would phase in a flat tax of 3.25% over the next three years. That idea appears widely supported by Republicans in the state Senate and Assembly, but it’s a non-starter with Democratic Governor Tony Evers, who has his own plans for the surplus. Evers has said he’d probably veto any flat tax plan.
When we deliver tax relief, it should be targeted to the middle class to give working families a little breathing room—not to give big breaks to millionaires and billionaires who don’t need the extra help to afford rising costs.
That’s just common sense.
— Governor Tony Evers (@GovEvers) January 13, 2023
Wisconsin’s current progressive income tax has four brackets, ranging from 3.54% up to 7.65% for incomes of $267,000 and up. Flat tax critics contend it mainly benefits those with higher incomes.
State Senator Andre Jacque (R-De Pere) and Representative David Murphy (R-Greenville) have teamed up to introduce a new bill to eliminate the sales and use tax on residential electricity and natural gas. The lawmakers issued a joint statement on the bill, noting that “Wisconsin’s average residential energy rates are significantly higher than the Midwest and US averages.”
Under current law, electricity and natural gas sold between November and April for residential use is exempt from the sales and use tax. This bill exempts from the sales and use tax electricity and natural gas sold for residential use regardless of when it is sold.
Because this bill relates to an exemption from state or local taxes, it may be referred to the Joint Survey Committee on Tax Exemptions for a report to be printed as an appendix to the bill.
WOMT
A new federal report shows that minority Wisconsinites were half as likely to successfully receive pandemic unemployment benefits as their white counterparts.
The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reports that a US Government Accountability Office audit showed that Black, Hispanic, and Native Wisconsinites were around half as likely to be getting their Pandemic Unemployment Assistance payments in 2020 and 2021.
The Department of Workforce Development is unable to explain the discrepancies. Wisconsin’s unemployment system suffered major breakdowns as record numbers of workers applied for benefits during the pandemic.
If you donated for Giving Tuesday to get a tax deduction, you’re in luck this year.
I R S spokesman Christopher Miller says that changes to the tax laws mean you can still file a simple return and deduct some of those donations.
“It certainly opens up avenues for taxpayers who still want to make a donation and take a deduction for those donations but find it more advantageous to take the standard deduction.”
That means you can deduct 300 dollars of those donations on the standard 1040 or 1040 EZ without filing more paperwork.
Miller says it’s important to remember to donate by check or credit card to get a proper receipt of your transactions and make sure that the charity you’re giving to qualifies for donations under tax laws.
“Don’t fall for or be pressured into donating by a gift card like an iTunes gift card or a wire transfer. That should be a big red flag to people that the charity is not for real.”
You can find a list of qualifying charities online at https://www.irs.gov/charities-non-profits/tax-exempt-organization-search
A new website can show you where your state tax dollars are spent. The information is provided by the Wisconsin Department of Revenue.
It reveals that 36 percent of state taxes go to K-12 schools, 16 percent to health-care programs like BadgerCare, eight percent to local property tax relief, 7 percent to the Department of Corrections (prisons), 6 percent to the UW System and 5 percent to local governments.
The site is the result of legislation (Act 66) from Senator Rob Cowles (R-Green Bay) and Representative Samantha Kerkman (R-Salem), the co-chairs of the legislature’s Joint Audit Committee.
“The website prepared and published by DOR, months in advance of the deadline we set by law, meets the requirements in Act 66 and exceeds my expectations,” Cowles said. “I encourage all Wisconsinites to visit the dashboard learn more about where their tax dollars are being used in Wisconsin State Government. I want to thank Secretary Barca and his team at DOR for their efforts to make the dashboard readily available.”
Assembly Republicans unsuccessfully attempted to overturn Governor Evers’ veto of a bill that would have ended federal unemployment benefits.
Assembly Speaker Robin Vos says it’s unfair that businesses have to compete with the federal government.
“If you pay people over $17 an hour tax free to stay home and not work there are going to be fewer people working it’s not rocket science.”
Minority leader Gordon Hintz says the numbers that Republicans and business leaders are quoting just don’t make sense.
“You can look right at the unemployment numbers. They continue to go down. Fewer people are filing unemployment; they’ve gone down the $300 bump.”
Wisconsin’s unemployment rate is 3 point 9 percent, and is below the national average, and many workers have left the retail and service sectors for other positions during the pandemic.
Wisconsin families should be seeing an average income tax cut of 800 dollars under a new state budget signed today by Governor Tony Evers.
Evers says he’s used his veto powers to target those tax cuts to families across the state.
“I’m newly providing tax relief to more than 1.6 million Wisconsin taxpayers at a time when our economy and Working Families across our state need it the most.”
Republicans had sent the Governor a budget that was far below the spending he requested in February, but Evers says there’s still room for tax cuts for Wisconsin families, along with increases in spending.
“When combined with prior reductions 2.4 million filers will be receiving tax relief in Wisconsin.”
The Governor also cut a number of policy decisions the GOP added to the budget, including a cut in spending for the lieutenant Governor’s security detail, as well as a proposed drug testing requirement to get unemployment insurance.
Legislative Republicans say they should be getting credit for the tax cuts.
Joint Finance Committee co-chair Mark Born says Evers made changes that will hurt people, like not changing income tax withholding tables.
“He vetoes the updates to the tax withholding tables that takes money out of people’s paychecks and keeps it instead with the government.”
Evers also shot down a removal of the personal property tax, and Born says they’ll work to get that passed through other means in the future.
Democrats on the legislature’s budget committee are calling Republican cuts to Governor Tony Evers’ proposed budget “foolish and embarrassing.”
Those comments came after the Joint Finance Committee removed a total of 380 items from the Governor’s budget on Thursday.
Representative Evan Goyke said the cuts would leave a “fiscal hole we will not be able to climb out of.” The Milwaukee Democrat expanded on that, in a YouTube video.
Governor Evers is calling on Wisconsinites to contact their lawmakers to push for items to be reintroduced into the budget, including expansion of Badgercare. “This is an embarrassing decision that will cost Wisconsin for decades to come,” said JFC Democrat, Senator Jon Erpenbach said of the Republican decision to reject federal funding for that.
Other provisions axed by the Republican majority included legalization of marijuana, and increased spending for education.
“The budget that we’re going to be adopting, I believe is going to be reasonable, responsible and realistic,” Joint Finance Committee co-chair, Senator Howard Marklein said prior to Thursday’s first JFC work session.
“It’s pretty clear the governor’s budget is unworkable, unrealistic and unsustainable,” said co-chair, Representative Mark Born. “No Wisconsin business or family would budget the way the governor has, and legislative Republicans will not either.”
We will focus on reasonable, responsible and realistic priorities to support all Wisconsinites! Our approach takes us back to basics as we build the next state budget. pic.twitter.com/YkUpxnvMJE
— Sen. Howard Marklein (@SenMarklein) May 6, 2021
Republicans will be working up a new budget off of base — that is, from current budget signed by Evers two years ago. A completed budget is expected to be ready by June or July, at which time Evers can use his extensive veto authority to modify it.
WRN’s Raymond Neupert contributed to this report