A big (ab)user of Wisconsin's Big Giveaway? Ron Johnson!

Well this was an interesting revelation from Madison's Channel 27 last night.

Between 2011 and 2015, the trust fund set up by Sen. Ron Johnson paid at least $400,000 annually in Wisconsin taxes.

Since 2016, however, the fund hasn't paid any state taxes. https://t.co/OaZ5AL65pg

— A.J. Bayatpour (@AJBayatpour) October 24, 2022

Oh really? How did that happen?

Tax records obtained from the Wisconsin Department of Revenue showed the Ronald Johnson and Jane Johnson Irrevocable Endowment Trust paid between $400,000 and $920,000 annually in state taxes between 2011, when Johnson was sworn into his first term as a U.S. Senator, and 2015.

From 2016 on, however, the trust fund didn't pay a single cent in state taxes. Johnson's campaign said it was because the fund was able to apply for Wisconsin's Manufacturing and Agriculture Tax Credit.

State Republicans, under former Gov. Scott Walker, enacted the credit in 2011. It took effect in 2013 and scaled up in size to its current level of 7.5% in 2016, the same year Johnson's trust fund no longer owed any state taxes.

Ah yes! The Manufacturing and Agriculture Tax Credit, which the Wisconsin Budget Project rightfully labeled "The Big Giveaway" in 2016! Let's remind you of how that became law over a decade ago.

On a chilly late February evening, the state's deepest-pocketed business lobby held its annual awards event at Milwaukee's Pfister Hotel to celebrate its most successful legislative session in memory.

Members of Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce toasted state Sen. (and now Congressman) Glenn Grothman there for spearheading the "most exemplary public policy initiative in support of manufacturing in more than 35 years," a news release says....

Slipped into Gov. Scott Walker's 2011-2013 budget at the last moment, the domestic production tax credit will cost the state $360 million in revenue over the next four years and some $130 million each year thereafter, according to the non-partisan Legislative Fiscal Bureau. Critics warn the impact could be even greater, a key point in a state still struggling with budget shortfalls.

The credit applies to profits derived from manufacturing or agriculture and is available both to corporations and shareholders of limited liability companies, S corporations or others who report business income on their individual tax returns.

And the first year the M&A Giveaway was fully phased in? 2016, the first year Ron Johnson's trust fund paid $0 in state income taxes.

But wait, the Manufacturing & Ag Tax Credit is for businesses. So how is Ron Johnson's trust fund able to use it? Let's go back to the Channel 27 report.

UW-Madison tax economist Ross Milton said it wasn't surprising to see the tax credit apply to trust funds like the Johnsons'.

"More or less, the way trust taxes work is they are taxed, kind of like they're a person," Milton said. "And so it makes sense then that tax credits like this would apply if you owned a business and that business showed up in your personal income taxes, it'd also apply to your trust."

Oh, so something that is allegedly intended to encourage businesses to expand is actually nothing more than an income tax dodge for business owners. Remember, there's no requirement to add any jobs in order to take the M&A Credit.

And RoJo also likes to use his post-business trust fund to invest in things for himself.

The tax credit itself has almost no productive value but instead serves as a loophole for the very wealthy like Ron Johnson https://t.co/2aHPLqWyDG pic.twitter.com/JGD5z0Eqnb

— Don Moynihan (@donmoyn) October 25, 2022

One last note, while Ron Johnson was giving himself and his donors hundreds of millions in tax deductions in the 2017 GOP Tax Scam he and his fellow GOPs were taking away the ability for people like my wife and I from writing off our home mortgage interest, property taxes and charitable contributions. And we don't have an M&A giveaway to make up the difference.

RoJo and his puppetmasters are no different than the oligarchs George was talking about 30 years ago.