Your Lakeshore Team

Governor Doyle has proposed doubling the current real estate transfer tax in his state budget – a proposal that would increase taxes on homes in Wisconsin by over $140 million. This idea is unfair, unnecessary and unwise. Lawmakers of both parties should reject this plan now.

The transfer tax is like a sales tax on selling a home. It also applies to all real estate sales so it’s applied to the sale of a farm, or a small corner grocery store, or on a major commercial property, as well as homes.

The current real estate transfer tax is $3 per $1,000 of value. On a median priced home in Wisconsin of $166,000, the tax would total nearly $500. Under the Governor’s plan, the tax would double to $6 per $1,000 of value, bringing the total tax on the average home to nearly $1,000. While the seller is responsible for paying this cost, it must be paid in full, at closing, at a time when both buyers and sellers must incur numerous closing costs. And if the sellers can’t afford that loss of equity, the price of the house will increase and buyers will be negatively impacted through higher prices. And since most sellers are usually buyers too, sellers who don’t pass the t! ax along will have a harder time affording their next home.

Regardless of who pays, this proposal is a tax on housing, pure and simple. If it becomes law, this whopping tax increase will move Wisconsin from having the 22^nd highest real estate transfer tax in the county, to the 12^th highest tax. Combine this with the fact that we have the 8^th highest property taxes in the nation, and going up every year, this is one tax increase we certainly can’t afford.

This real estate tax – or “home tax” – is unfair, unnecessary and unwise. The legislature ought to throw it out and throw it out now.