Monday, Feb. 5, 2024
Do the top 1% in Wisconsin pay an effective state-local tax rate of 6.6% and the bottom 20% pay 10.8%?
The top 1% of Wisconsin income earners pay an effective rate of 6.6% of their family income in state and local taxes, the Institute for Taxation and Economic Policy, a liberal–leaning think tank, said in a January report.
The annual income of the top 1% in Wisconsin exceeds $609,700.
The bottom 20% — annual income under $29,400 — pay an effective rate of 10.8%, according to the analysis.
The analysis includes sales, income, property and other taxes.
Two conservative tax experts didn’t dispute the numbers, but offered caveats.
Katherine Loughead of the conservative Tax Foundation said the report largely disregards progressive state and local taxes such as corporate and individual income taxes on business owners.
Chris Edwards of the libertarian Cato Institute said top earners pay much higher effective tax rates overall because federal taxes are progressive and account for twice as much revenue as state and local taxes.
This fact brief is responsive to conversations such as this one.
Sources
- Institute for Taxation and Economic Policy Who pays? A Distributional Analysis of the Tax Systems in All 50 States
- Governing Most State Tax Systems Are Highly Regressive, Report Finds
- Google Docs Chris Edwards 1/23/24 email
- Google Docs Katherine Loughead 1/23/24 email
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Fact briefs are bite-sized, well-sourced explanations that offer clear "yes" or "no" answers to questions, confusions, and unsupported claims circulating online. They rely on publicly available data and documents, often from the original source. Fact briefs are written and published by Gigafact contributor publications.
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