News of the Day

Republicans will try Monday to urgently reconcile the tax overhaul bills they passed in the House and Senate, entering a delicate period where they have to retain the support of their party’s conservative and moderate members. Discussions are expected to continue throughout the week and could conclude as early as next week with the drafting of a so-called “conference report” that constitutes the final legislation. That bill must pass each chamber before Trump can sign it into law.

The most delicate discussions will probably take place over how to tax so-called “pass-through” businesses. There are millions of these firms in the United States, and they can range from small businesses to large real estate companies and professional sports franchises. They are often owned by a single entity or partnership, and their income is passed through to the owners, who pay taxes on that money through the individual income tax code.

The two bills take markedly different approaches to the taxation of pass-through business income, with the House bill providing a much larger tax cut.

There are several other issues that need to be resolved.

The Senate bills begins lowering the corporate tax rate in 2019, and the House bill begins lowering it in 2018. The House and Senate bills take different approaches to the individual tax brackets: The House bill has only four brackets, and the top rate remains unchanged at 39.6 percent; the Senate bill keeps seven brackets but lowers the top rate to 38.5.

The House bill creates a five-year “family flexibility credit” that aims to help families lower their taxes. The Senate bill doesn’t have such a measure.

The House bill entirely eliminates the estate tax — a tax paid on inheritances that is limited near exclusively to the very wealthy — beginning in 2024, while the Senate bill scales it back dramatically without getting rid of it entirely.

The Senate moved to resolve one potential sticking point between the two chambers — moving to scale back, rather than eliminate entirely, the deduction for state and local taxes. The Senate bill adopts a House compromise that would allow individuals to deduct up to $10,000 in property taxes only.

The Senate bill allows almost all of the tax cuts for individuals and families to expire after 2025 — a step that was taken to make sure the bill didn’t add to the deficit beyond the levels permitted under complex Senate rules. White House budget director Mick Mulvaney insisted again Sunday that those cuts wouldn’t really expire because a future Congress would extend them.

Business groups across Wisconsin and the nation applaud the efforts of Reps. Born and Nygren and Sens. Tiffany and Craig that build on Wisconsin’s past tort reform successes. Among other reforms, their legislation addresses the most pressing civil litigation challenge – escalating transactional costs relating to discovery.

The heart of this litigation reform initiative is aligning Wisconsin’s civil procedures for discovery and class actions to the corresponding federal rules. The modernization of these court procedures, mostly aimed at costly discovery practices, will reduce litigation costs for small and large businesses, as well as state and local governments who must spend taxpayers’ dollars responding to abusive discovery practices.

Uniformity between the state and federal rules makes it easier for both plaintiffs and defendants. It enhances predictability and provides judges with a larger body of case law upon which to draw. This is particularly helpful to Wisconsin Circuit Court judges.

These common-sense discovery reforms will do the following:

• Make it clear that both courts and parties have an obligation to pursue the just, speedy, and inexpensive resolution of each case.

• Establish cost-benefit and proportionality requirements for discovery to prevent litigants from abusing the discovery process to leverage a
higher potential settlement or engage in a “fishing expedition.”

• Put on hold discovery and other proceedings pending the court’s decision on a motion to dismiss or other dispositive motions, protecting parties from costly discovery in cases that may be dismissed or where refinement of the pleadings may clarify the allegations and scope of relevant discovery.

• Provide notice of third-party litigation financing, if the financier has a right to receive compensation that is contingent on and sourced from
the outcome of the action. Such third party finance can increase the cost of litigation and cause suits to be brought that would not
otherwise have been financially justified.

• Limit discovery of electronically stored information (ESI) to address the escalating volume of ESI that is now one of the most significant
discovery-related costs.

• Unless otherwise stipulated or ordered by the court, limit discovery to 25 interrogatories, 10 depositions, none of which may exceed 7 hours
in duration, and a look-back period of not more than 5 years prior to the accrual of the cause of action.

Gov. Scott Walker wants to launch a nearly $7 million national marketing campaign to persuade millennials and military veterans to move to his state to help with a worker shortage.

Walker on Wednesday called on the Legislature to approve funding for the $6.8 million ad campaign before the end of the current session in early 2018. He said the marketing campaign would pitch Wisconsin as a more affordable place for millennials to live where they could be spending more time in a canoe, having a drink with friends or attending a concert, rather than sitting in traffic.

Walker said it was “critically important” to “get more bodies” in Wisconsin. The effort would include $3.5 million in ads targeting military veterans and their families and $3 million marketing Wisconsin as a destination for young professionals, particularly those already living in nearby Midwest cities of Detroit, Minneapolis and Chicago, Walker said.

The effort would likely start after an already-funded $1 million ad campaign targeting University of Wisconsin alumni and millennials living in Chicago, said Tricia Braun, chief operating officer of the Wisconsin Economic Development Corp. That’s slated to run January through March, and the hope is the expanded campaign Walker announced would begin shortly after that, she said.

Walker is also calling for an additional $300,000 would be used to develop a mobile job resource center that could provide services and recruitment in areas in rural Wisconsin with limited access to permanent services.

“It’s not enough to just give speeches and talks, we have to put a whole campaign behind this,” Walker said.

Part of the effort would be to woo back young adults who attended college in Wisconsin. The key time to reach them is four or five years after graduation when they start thinking about where they want to live long term and raise children, Walker said.

Business groups, federal lawmakers and public officials’ associations have signed on to support South Dakota’s legal bid to collect sales taxes from out-of-state internet retailers.

South Dakota is asking the U.S. Supreme Court to review whether retailers can be required to collect sales taxes in states where they lack a physical presence. The case could have national implications for e-commerce.

South Dakota Attorney General Marty Jackley’s office said this week that organizations ranging from the National Governors Association to the National Retail Federation have filed friend-of-the-court briefs supporting South Dakota’s petition to the high court.

The state is seeking to overturn legal rulings issued mostly before the online shopping boom.

Thirty-six attorneys general from states including Colorado, Minnesota, North Dakota and Wisconsin have also filed a friend-of-the-court brief.

Ajit Pai, the Republican chairman of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), announced on Tuesday that the FCC will vote to roll back Obama-era net neutrality rules that require internet service providers to treat all web traffic equally. Pai in a statement blasted the rules as “heavy-handed, utility-style” regulation of the internet imposed by Democrats.

Today, I have shared with my colleagues a draft order that would abandon this failed approach and return to the longstanding consensus that served consumers well for decades,” Pai said. “Under my proposal, the federal government will stop micromanaging the Internet.”

“Instead, the FCC would simply require Internet service providers to be transparent about their practices so that consumers can buy the service plan that’s best for them and entrepreneurs and other small businesses can have the technical information they need to innovate,” he said.

The commission will vote on the proposal at its Dec. 14 meeting. With Republicans holding three of the FCC’s five seats, the repeal is expected to pass.

Pai said he would release the full text of his plan to the public on Wednesday, but he made clear that he believes the Federal Trade Commission is better equipped to police internet service providers than the FCC.

Two Democratic legislators, Rep. Melissa Sargent, D-Madison, and Sen. Bob Wirch, D-Somers, introduced a bill Friday to increase the state minimum wage to $15 over the next five years.

Under this bill, the minimum wage would gradually increase to $15 each year over a five-year time period. After the five-year period ends, the bill will require the Department of Workforce Development to adjust minimum wage income annually to match the trends of the current economy.

The two Democratic lawmakers introduced a similar bill together in the last legislative session, but it did not pass.

Sargent admits the bill faces a partisan legislature, but she argues introducing these types of bills can “change the fabric of the state” even though they might not pass because it allows people to think and talk about issues that matter to them.

“The people of Wisconsin are asking for this [minimum wage] bill to be introduced,” Sargent said. “Folks are overwhelmingly saying ‘It’s time to increase the minimum wage to $15 an hour.’ It’s my job as a legislator and people’s servant to hear the voices of the people and bring what is that they find important [into] the building to discuss.”

The co-sponsorship period for this bill ends Dec. 1. The bill has not yet been scheduled for a committee hearing.

Planned spending in the recently enacted 2017-19 state budget departs from recent patterns in two important ways. First, general fund expenditures rise 8.8% over the two years, the largest biennial increase since 2009-11 (12.1%). Second, much of the increase is for school aid, which has grown less in recent years. K-12 aid will grow 8.3% over two years, the largest biennial jump since 2005-07 (9.0%). These are two important findings from a new review of the 2017-19 state budget, “Decisions Made, Questions Deferred,” from the Wisconsin Taxpayers Alliance (WISTAX).

State general fund appropriations are budgeted to increase from $15.9 billion in 2017 to $16.6 billion in 2018 and to $17.4 billion in 2019. Over half of all general fund expenditures go, not to fund state services, but to aid local governments, WISTAX noted. Another 26% aids individuals and organizations, particularly Medicaid for the poor and disabled. State operations, including the U.W. System, consume the remaining 24%.

The state’s largest expenditure is for K-12 school aid, which grows significantly over the next two years. School aids are rising 3.4% ($187.4 million) this year and 4.7% ($264.3 million) in 2019 to $5.9 billion. School aids rose 5.6% and 3.9%, respectively, during the prior two biennia. Nearly all of the additional dollars are directed into a relatively new “per pupil” aid, rather than into the much larger equalization aid formula; this is a major shift in school funding.

Two other areas claim the bulk of remaining new spending. The budget uses income and sales taxes to reduce property taxes. It eliminates the state levy for forestry programs ($90 million annually) and the personal property tax on machinery, tools, and parts ($74 million); increases the school levy credit by $87 million per year, and raises the lottery credit by shifting $48 million of general fund taxes to pay lottery expenses.

As with prior budgets, Medicaid expenditures are growing. General fund spending on the program totals $6.1 billion over two years, a 4.9% increase.

Senate Republicans on Thursday unveiled a tax reform bill that breaks with the House in significant ways. If the House Republican bill was a first draft of tax reform, the Senate bill is the first rewrite.

Here are the key differences between the Senate and House bills.

State and local taxes 

The Senate bill will entirely repeal the deduction for state and local taxes, making no exception for property taxes. The House bill would allow deductions up to $10,000 for property taxes.

Home mortgage interest deduction

The Senate would keep in place the deduction for newly purchased homes up to $1 million while the House plan would cut the threshold to $500,000.

Popular tax credits and deductions

The Senate would keep in place a variety of popular tax credits and deductions that would have been eliminated by the House tax bill released last week. It preserves tax credits and deductions for adoption, medical expense, teacher expenses, and student loan interest.

Tax brackets

The House bill would condense the number of tax brackets to four: 12 percent for income up to $90,000; 25 percent for income up to $260,000; 35 percent for income up to $1 million; and 39.6 percent for income over $1 million.

The Senate bill would establish seven tax brackets at 10 percent, 12 percent, 22.5 percent, 25 percent, 32.5 percent, 35 percent and 38.5 percent for the nation’s highest income earners.

Estate tax

The Senate bill would double the estate-tax exemption for wealthy estates from $11 million to $22 million per couple (or from $5.5 million to $11 million per individual) while the House bill would repeal the estate tax entirely.

Corporate tax rate

The Senate would cut the corporate tax rate to 20 percent, like the House would, but delay its implementation until 2019 to reduce the projected cost of the bill over ten years. The House would cut the corporate tax rate next year.

Pass-through businesses

The Senate would establish a 17.4 percent deduction for pass-through businesses based on the Section 199 domestic manufacturing deduction that would lower the effective tax rate for small businesses in the top tax rate to slightly more than 30 percent, according to Senate Finance Committee aide.

The House bill, by contrast, would have established a 25 percent rate for pass-through companies but would only make 30 percent of their revenue eligible for that rate and tax the other 70 percent as wages under the individual tax rate. That would result in a blended rate for many small businesses between 35 percent and 38 percent.