Tom Tiffany's 0% income tax = 12% sales taxes. And his 10% income tax cut won't pay your bills

You may have seen some version of this story over the last couple of weeks here in Wisconsin, where GOP Governor candidate Tom Tiffany spilled the beans about what he would do regarding taxes if given the chance.

At a Sept. 23 campaign event, when Tiffany was asked by an attendee whether he would eliminate income taxes, he said he would look at that idea after the first state budget.

"I will not be able to do it in the first budget, but after that, we sure hope to be able to get it done," Tiffany said, according to audio obtained by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel....

In a statement, a spokeswoman said Tiffany "will always look for opportunities to reduce the overall tax burden."

"How much may be possible will depend on economic conditions, state revenues, and other factors that remain uncertain," she said. "The 'hope' is that a growing Wisconsin economy will create opportunities to further lower taxes on working families. What is certain is that Tom will not shift the tax burden from one tax to another, and he will deliver a 10% income tax cut for working families earning under $150,000."

Those comments lead to a LOT of questions.

1. Why can't Tiffany cut income taxes to 0% in the first budget? Go big or go home, MFer! Seriously, what's going to be different in 2029 than 2027 for trying to do this?

2. It's funny to see that GOP hack spokeswoman say "Well, we'll have to see how much money is around, but if we magically grow more and have more money, we'll cut taxes." I thought we had $3.3 billion in the bank, are you implying that's not a certain thing, or is that just not enough?

3. "What is certain is that Tom will not shift the tax burden from one tax to another." Well, then how do you handle a cut in tax revenues?

That comment is followed in the article by this reaction from Gov Evers top budget guy.

Brian Pahnke, the state budget director for Democratic Gov. Tony Evers' administration, said, "it would just be very, very difficult to provide the services at the current level of any sort if you didn't have an income tax in Wisconsin."

So let's not discuss how much of a giveaway to the rich that cutting the income tax rate to 0% would be in our state (and it would be). Instead, let's go into the numbers themselves, given that the state just released its Annual Fiscal Report for 2026, allowing us to use the most up-to-date taxing and spending amounts for Wisconsin.

Here's how much Wisconsin's General Fund took in for revenue for FY 2026, and how much they would take in for FY 2027, if we get the same % increases that the Legislative Fiscal Bureau projected back in January.

Now, let's go back to how much money is projected to be available at the start of the next budget, after FY 2027 ends.

So can Tom Tiffany explain how you can cut the $10.9 billion in state income taxes to $0? Where is the other $7.8 billion going to come from in year 1, and the $10.9 billion that would be required year after year? Would he raise the state sales tax to 9.75% in 2027 and then 12% going forward? Would he raise corporate taxes? (HAHAHAHA! I kid, I kid) Would he quadruple excise taxes along with doubling the sales tax?

Or will he (much like Scott Walker before him) shift burdens down to local governments and individuals, requiring higher property taxes, even more referenda, and higher wheel taxes. That would be consistent with Tiffany's record both in the State Legislature in the Walker years, and when Congressman Tiffany voted to shove more costs of services like SNAP down to states like Wisconsin in GOP Tax Scam 2.0, requiring more state tax dollars for the same dollar amount of services.

Now add in the Wisconsin Department of Health Services saying they will need nearly $2 billion more over the next 2 years to maintain the same services because of the rising costs of health care and increased needs for individuals. So that $3.18 billion is not likely to be entirely available to pay for some kind of income tax cut in 2027-29 without having to do anything else.

But maybe Tiffany isn't promising to do much for tax cuts anyway. Let's go with Tiffany campaign's claim of a "10% income tax cut for working families earning under $150,000." We have some idea about how much that would cost, as current Governor Evers wanted to do the same thing in his 2023-25 budget, and Tiffany's fellow Republicans in the Legislature turned it down (because they're petty and pig-headed).

Let's go back to what the Legislative Fiscal Bureau said it would cost, starting with Page 303 of the Comparative Summary of items in the 2023-25 budget.

Set the credit equal to the greater of 10% of the claimant's net tax liability, defined as the claimant's income tax liability after the application of nonrefundable tax credits, but prior to the application of the nonrefundable credit for taxes paid to other states, or: (a) $100 if the claimant's filing status is single or head-of-household and the claimant's AGI is less than $100,000; (b) $100 if the claimant's filing status is married-joint and the combined AGI of the claimant and the claimant's spouse is less than $150,000; and (c) $50 if the claimant's filing status is marriedseparate and the claimant's AGI is less than $75,000....

Then the credit phased out between $100K-$120K for single filers and $150K-$175K for married, joint filers. The total tax cut ended up looking like this.

$320 as a max amount doesn't seem like a great total, but given the large number of Wisconsinites that would have eligible for this 10% income tax credit, the LFB estimated the total tax cut at $839.8 million over 2 years.

But I will add that the amount of that 10% tax credit for "Wisconsin families" making $150K or less might be lower than $839.8 million that was estimated back then, because the Republicans in the Legislature responded in 2023 by dropping tax rates in their passed budget, and while Evers partially vetoed the rate cuts for all dollars past $27,630 single and $36,840 married-joint, he did OK the rate cuts below that.

And more income taxes were cut in the 2025-27 budget, as shown in this LFB analysis.

The income levels in respective tax brackets will also be higher in 2027, due to indexing for inflation. Between the indexing and the last two budgets, Wisconsinites making less than $150,000 owe less in state income taxes than they did in 2023, so while a 10% income tax cut for those people sounds good on paper, it really won't account for that much.

Then add the higher costs of health care, gasoline, electricity are more than going to counteract the couple of hundred dollars that Wisconsinites might get. Then add in the likelihood that Tiffany will starve K-12 public schools and local communitites of state aids, while failing to allow them to raise sales taxes on their own (unless they're rural tourist towns, of course) and property taxes for Wisconisnites will be likely to go up even more. So that GOP spokeswoman's claim of "not shifting the tax burden from one tax to the other" doesn't seem likely, and people with real jobs and real financial constraints will end up paying more both in local taxes, and out of pocket.

Can we stop falling for the same Tom Tiffany/WisGOP BS that hasn't worked for decades, and actually make the greedy pay back some of what they're stealing from everyone else in this state, and improve our investments in infrastructure and people's stability to allow for a better chance for more Wisconisnites to get ahead? That would be a nice change from the same old trickle-down, limited payment garabge that isn't working for most communities and individuals in our state.