Author: Jon Peacock

Numerous analyses of the distribution of the tax shifts have been completed, and they consistently show that the final tax bill will cause a huge shift in wealth to the richest Americans. When we released an analysis a couple of months ago of the proposed tax bill, Speaker Ryan claimed that the Wisconsin Budget Project and others who pointed out the extremely slanted nature of the tax package were engaging in “class warfare.” That’s an ironic charge from a lawmaker who has been leading the way for changes in taxes and spending that will substantially increase the wide gulf...

Photo by Gage Skidmore and licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0 The tax cut plan unveiled by House Republicans would provide a massive windfall to corporations and the wealthiest Americans, while hurting some taxpayers and substantially increasing the federal deficit. We don’t yet have updated calculations of how the revised plan will redistribute taxes among different income groups, but the modest revisions to the plan won’t significantly change the previous calculations – which found that 80% of the tax cuts in the initial plan would go to the top 1% of Americans. (See Figure 2 in this Oct. 27th analysis...

An estimated 11,400 households will have tax increases averaging $614. Despite the claims of state lawmakers that the biennial budget bill cuts property taxes, the actions of those policymakers will increase property taxes for thousands of low-income Milwaukee and state households. The budget bill does that by significantly reducing funding for the Homestead Tax Credit, which was designed to provide targeted property tax relief to low-income homeowners and renters. A new Wisconsin Budget Project summary of tax changes in the budget bill describes some of the major items, which include more than $400 million of tax cuts. But the...

Reviewing the Foxconn costs and risks, without the rose-colored glasses, presents different assumptions about Foxconn job creation yield and their price tag for taxpayers. The cost of the proposed new tax credits for the tentative deal with Foxconn could be far larger per job created than some people have suggested. Those costs will vary greatly depending on the ratio of spending for payroll versus the capital expenditures. The more that Foxconn invests in its facilities and state-of-the-art automation, rather than payroll, the more the proposed deal will cost state taxpayers per job created. A new Wisconsin Budget Project report...