Taxes-Spending

Issue Overview: While all citizens must pay their fair share of the cost of government, excessive taxation stifles the economic activity necessary to producing the revenue needed for government to function. Wisconsin needs to reduce the tax burden and enact strict controls on spending at all levels of government.

• Sales Tax Expansion: Proposals that include extending the sales tax to currently exempt services will cause significant increases in tax burden on Wisconsin’s small business owners.  We oppose a budget fix that targets small business owners for higher taxes, and plans that raise revenue by shifting the tax burden.
 
• Personal Property Taxes: Many surrounding states have already eliminated taxes on personal property, yet Wisconsin continues this highly inefficient and unfair tax which is especially burdensome for smaller businesses. While some progress has been made with the elimination of the tax on selected items, we support eliminating the personal property tax entirely.

• Spending: The level of taxation is a function of spending by state and local governments.  That's why strict controls on spending are necessary to reduce overall taxation levels. We support a super majority vote requirement to increase taxes or broaden the application of the sales tax to currently exempted products and services.

• Oil Company Tax: Affordable and reliable energy and motor fuel is vitally important to small business. A tax on oil companies will ultimately increase gasoline prices. We oppose the tax on oil companies.

• Gas Tax Index: Small business owners believe their elected officials should be required to vote on all tax increases. We oppose indexing the gas tax that would provide an automatic annual increase in the tax.