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Politics & Government

No State Income Tax? Craig Applauds Governor Walker, Secretary Huebsch on Tax Reform Statement

Moving away from an income-based tax system is fairer, simpler, according to David Craig, 83rd Assembly representative (R-Vernon)

Wisconsin Department of Administration Secretary Mike Huebsch signaled the Administration’s willingness to consider moving from an income based tax system to a pro-growth consumption (sales) based tax system in a statement issued on Tuesday.

In response to Secretary Huebsch’s comments, State Representative David Craig, who chairs the Assembly Committee on Financial Institutions, had the following comments:

“I am pleased that the Governor and his administration are considering a common sense move to a fairer, simpler and pro-growth tax system. For far too long our current income-based system has been, and continues to be, manipulated by politicians on both sides of the aisle through loopholes, special interest deductions and credits, and unfair tax policies like the marriage penalty that harm Wisconsin families and job creators. Rather than rewarding hard work and risk taking, we have rewarded those who can take advantage of the most loopholes, leaving behind the vast majority of Wisconsin taxpayers.

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“By eliminating the personal income tax we can put the control back into the hands of the consumer, encourage personal savings, keep more money in the pockets of taxpayers and make our state more attractive to job creators. History has also shown that reducing or eliminating a state’s income tax aids in economic recovery.

“Since first running for office, I have supported fundamentally reforming our tax code. Wisconsin should act now to scrap our current tax code and replace it with this common sense solution.”

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According to the Wall Street Journal article Trabert and Davidson: States that Spend Less, Tax Less---and Grow More, “States without an income tax have significantly better growth in private sector GDP (59% versus 42%) over the last 10 years. They increased the number of jobs by 4.9% while jobs in the rest of the states declined by 2.6%. States without an income tax gained population (+5.5%) from domestic migration (U.S. residents moving in and out of states) while all other states as a whole lost 1.3% of population between 2000 and 2009.”

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