WisGOP candidate puts up property tax relief that WisGOP legislators have rejected for years

A real concern in Wisconsin has been rising property taxes, especially for seniors who may have paid off their homes, but are seeing taxes rise beyond the rate of inflation. This has received extra emphasis in the last year, as school property taxes went up by the largest rates in over 30 years as costs rose in 2025 and schools were allowed to use more resources, but state aid was not increased.

Complicating this is that fewer Wisconsinites have been able to receive the state’s Homestead Tax Credit, which is intended to offset rent or property tax costs for lower-income and especially senior Wisconsinites. This credit has had its income levels stay the same since Scott Walker and the Wisconsin GOP took power in 2011, and look at the trend as a result.

In response to this, Republican candidate Jon Aleckson has a solution on how to help seniors pay for their rising property tax bills. Aleckson is running in the 50th Assembly district, which includes all of Green County and southern Dane County communities such as Oregon and Belleville,

The first part is relatively straightforward, and involves an expansion of the state’s Homestead Credit.

That’s quite a difference, doubling the maximum credit, and more than doubling the income levels that can get a writeoff.

And the Legislative Fiscal Bureau notes another reason that Wisconsin seniors have especially been susceptible to losing their Homestead Credits in recent years. And this reason isn't due to incomes not keeping up with property taxes, but because Social Security payments have gone up significantly to try to match higher inflation, while the income limits have remained at the same levels.

The continued decline in total claimants, and credits claimed, in 2021 and 2022 could be partially attributable to the significant cost-of-living adjustments applied to Social Security payments in those years. These adjustments were the result of high inflation during 2021 and 2022, mainly driven by pandemic-related economic factors. The adjustment for 2022 (8.7%) represented the largest inflation adjustment to Social Security payments since 1981. Under the homestead credit, household income increases as Social Security payments increase. To the extent household income increases above the income threshold of $8,060, claimants receive lower credit amounts or are disqualified altogether.

So it’s not a bad idea to expand the Homestead Credit to get back some of what has been lost. You know who else thought it was a good idea to expand the Homestead Credit? TONY EVERS, who has asked to expand the Homestead Credit in every budget he has submitted to the GOP Legislature. Including this proposal from last year.

Increase the income level at which the homestead tax credit begins to phase out (income threshold) to $19,000, increase the income level above which no credit is allowed (maximum income level) to $37,500, and reduce the rate at which the credit phases out (phase-out rate) to 7.891%. Specify that this provision would first apply beginning in tax year 2025. The maximum allowable property taxes or rent constituting property taxes would remain at $1,460, as under current law. The following formula factors of the credit would be indexed for inflation annually, beginning in tax year 2026: (a) the income threshold; (b) the maximum income level; and (c) the maximum allowable property taxes or rent constituting property taxes. The indexing adjustment would be calculated in each year based on the percentage change in the U.S. consumer price index for all urban consumers, U.S. city average (CPI-U), as determined by the U.S. Department of Labor (USDOL). The percentage would be calculated as the change between the CPI-U for the month of August of the previous year and the CPI-U for August, 2024. The adjustment could not occur unless the percentage is a positive number. DOR would be required to annually adjust the phase-out rate (7.891% in tax year 2025) to reflect the indexed formula factors. Statutory modifications would be made to clarify the current law provisions under which a claimant cannot claim the credit if the claimant did not have earned income during the calendar year, unless the claimant or the claimant's spouse was disabled or was over the age of 61. The Administration estimates that state GPR expenditures would increase by $71,600,000 in 2025-26, $76,200,000 in 2026-27, and $83,200,000 in 2027-28.

For the visually inclined, here’s what would have happened to the Homestead Credit under the Aleckson and Evers proposals compared to what we are stuck with today.

So why are we still at these lower income levels that make so many Wisconsinites ineligible?

Provision not included. (Removed from budget consideration pursuant to Joint Finance Motion #4.)

And who is one of the co-chairs Joint Finance and made that decision to throw out Evers' expanson of the Homestead Credit? It’s Jon Aleckson’s own State Senator and fellow Republican, Howard Marklein!

Seems like you might wanna talk to the guy on the right and ask why he caused this bad situation, Jon. Maybe when you're campaigning together at the Green County Fair or something.

The second part of Aleckson's plans to help seniors with property taxes has some constitutional changes that I think are worthy of getting into.

Freeze the assessed value of a primary residence for any Wisconsin homeowner age 70 or older who has lived in their home for at least five years.
• Place a net worth ceiling of $200,000 on participating seniors
• Provide that the frozen assessed value remains in place for as long as the senior lives in their home as their primary residence.
• Require passage by two consecutive Wisconsin legislatures and approval by voters statewide — ensuring the protection is democratically ratified and constitutionally durable.

This sounds good on the surface, right? Seniors don’t end up paying higher property taxes due to higher assessments on homes they already own. And I'll credit Aleckson for admitting that you’d have to create a new constitutional amendment to give a tax break based entirely on age, since is why the current Homestead Credit doesn’t have an explicit age target, even though seniors are a main constituency that is intended to be helped by it.

However, that’s got a problem. Let me remind you that property taxes for Wisconsin communities are limited to a total AMOUNT LEVIED. Rising property assessments only affect your tax bill in relation to how much the other assessments in your taxing area go up. The LFB put out a chart last Summer which shows the property tax rates Wisconsinites pay have continued to go down, even as total taxes paid have gone up.

What would happen with a freeze on property assessments for seniors is that all other homeowners in a community would end up paying more, if those homeowners saw their assessments go up. That’s because the non-senior property owners would make up a larger percentage of the community’s tax base.

There’s a flip-side problem where property taxes could still go up even as property values go down, as they did in the late 2000s. The amount of taxes that could be levied could still be allowed to stay level or go up, if the community so chooses, and that’s regardless of what happens with the values underneath. That would be an increase in rates, which raises taxes even if property assessments have not changed.

I’d also add that lower property taxes up front from the lower assessments could reduce the expanded Homestead Credit, But for homeowners, that would be only if someone paid less than $2,336 in property taxes, and that’s well below the median Wisconsin tax bill of $3,466 for this upcoming year (per the LFB). So I wouldn’t be too concerned for that part (and it’s probably better to get the relief in December’s tax bill vs waiting for tax refunds 2-4 months later).

To Aleckson’s credit, he says that the higher burdens and property taxes that others may have to pay could require more legislation. He says the LFB should be asked “to look at the cost to local governments and find a way for the state to make up the difference so schools and towns don't take a hit”. What’s funny is that “schools and towns” wouldn’t be limited in raising taxes to come up with the revenue, the mix of who pays is the big difference with this proposed relief to seniors.

Which again means that the best way around this problem of rising property taxes is to remove the Republicans who have blocked additional state aid to schools and other communities that Governor Evers and other Democrats have asked for. This is why we have been in this cycle of increased property taxes to make up the difference, and/or referenda requiring these communities to go over their tax limits because costs of business kept going up well above what Scott Walker and his fellow WisGOPs in the Legislature allowed these communities to pay for.

So I appreciate the effort, and I think Dems should join with Republican Jon Aleckson in continuing the requests of Governor Evers, and ask for an expanded Homestead Credit to help low-income and/or senior Wisconsinites afford their property taxes. And maybe also ask for a constitutional change to allow for seniors to be property taxed in a different way.

But an even better idea would be to put Democrats in charge of the Legislature for the first time in 16 years, and make corporations and richer Sconnies pay more after a decade and a half of tax cuts. Then you can use the increased state resources to pay for more of the costs of local government, and stop the cycle of increased property taxes and referenda that are causing a strain for a lot of us.

That’s the real problem here, and Republicans have failed miserably in dealing with it in the Age of Fitzwalkerstan. And if Jon Aleckson became the 50th Republican in the Assembly to allow them to keep control, you can bet he won't be able to put his ideas of expanded Homestead Credits into law. That might get in the way of helping oligarchs and mediocre businessmen get even more tax breaks, and that's not something GOPs are going to trade off.