Report: Wisconsin's tax burden drops below national average

MADISON, Wis. - Wisconsin's state and local tax burden dropped below the national average and taxes as a share of income in 2020 reached its lowest level in at least half a century, a report released Tuesday from the nonpartisan Wisconsin Policy Forum showed.

State and local taxes as a share of income was 10.2% in 2020, its lowest point since at least 1970, the report said. That is the farthest back records go at the Wisconsin Policy Forum.

While overall taxes increased by 2.3% in in the past fiscal year that ended on June 30, 2020, total personal income went up by 3.4% in calendar year 2019, the most recent data available, the report said. Personal income continued to rise in the second half of the year, despite the pandemic, the report said.

The 10.2% share of taxes as a percentage of income was down from 10.3% in 2019. That continues a downward trend since 1994 when it was 13.1%, the Wisconsin Policy Forum report said.

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Wisconsin ranked 23rd in state and local tax burden, and was below the national average, based on 2018 U.S. Census data, the most current year available. The state ranked 17th highest in tax burden the year before.

Wisconsin had ranked in the top 10 of states nationally during the 1990s and 2000s.