Wisconsin Watch partners with Gigafact to produce fact briefs — bite-sized fact checks of trending claims. Read our methodology to learn how we check claims.
Watch the video version of this fact brief by Trisha Young.
Yes.
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
Republish our articles for free, online or in print, under a Creative Commons license.
