New Report Shows Wisconsin Getting Older, Worsening Labor Shortage Crisis

A new report finds Wisconsin’s median age is rising, a bad sign for the Badger State’s labor shortage crisis, a workforce expert said.

And Governor Tony Evers has been a sleep at the switch in meeting the crisis, according to Rachel Ver Velde, senior director of Workforce, Education & Employment Policy at Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce, the combined state chamber and manufacturers’ association. 

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Poll: 73 Percent of Taxpayers Say Government Doesn’t Use Their Taxes Wisely

Ahead of Tax Day on April 18, 73% of taxpayers said the government doesn’t use their taxes wisely, a new survey found. A separate report found that red states have the better taxpayer return on investment.

Wallethub’s “Taxpayer Survey” found that 28% of respondents said charities would better spend their money; 26% said local governments would best spend their money, followed by state government (22%), the federal government (16%) and religious groups (13%).

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Tennessee Has the Highest Beer Tax Rate in the U.S.

Tennessee has the highest beer tax rate in the country, according to a new report from the Tax Foundation.

Tennessee’s rate is $1.29 per gallon, one of just two states that charge more than $1 per gallon in the country. Alaska charges $1.07.

In the fiscal year just completed at the end of July, Tennessee collected more than $19 million in beer tax, which was $1.6 million more than it had budgeted. The year before, it collected $18.7 million in beer tax.

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Georgia Lawmakers Sign Off on Flat Tax

Governor Brian Kemp

Georgia lawmakers passed legislation that will gradually drop the state income tax rate over the next few years, a move that proponents say will make the state more competitive.

The state House voted 167-2, and the state Senate voted 41-13 in favor of an amended House Bill 1437. The bill sets the state’s tax level at 4.99% by 2029, starting with a 5.49% flat tax for the tax year beginning Jan. 1, 2024.

The measure, which received broad bipartisan support in both chambers of the Legislature, now heads to Gov. Brian Kemp, a Republican, for his signature. Kemp is expected to sign the bill into law.

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After Three Years of Budget Surpluses Sumner County Commission Keeps Property Tax Rate at $2.50 For 2018

Tennessee Star

  GALLATIN, Tennessee — After three years of county revenues exceeding ever-increasing annual budgets, the Sumner County Board of Commissioners by a vote of 21-3 adopted a property tax rate of $2.50 per $100 of assessed value, unchanged from last year, at their regularly scheduled July meeting. The $2.50 tax rate, a greater than 20 percent increase over the $2.08 certified tax rate, originally implemented in 2014 by the then newly-elected County Commission in a controversial special-called meeting which immediately followed a special called Budget Committee meeting, met with much public resistance. When the topic was added to a commission meeting agenda three meetings later, finally allowing Sumner County residents to speak on the issue, the county administration building was overflowing with protestors, with dozens making public comments against the tax increase and causing the meeting to go until after 1 a.m. The annual budgets for 2016, 2017 and 2018 have projected county revenues to grow by more than 3 percent per year above and beyond the impact from the 2014 property tax increase.  The total growth in revenues for the three-year period was conservatively estimated at $9 million. The actual growth has far exceeded those estimates, yielding an additional…

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