Stafsholt Bill Passes In Senate – Legislation Cuts Fees For Property Owners While Delivering Long Term Funding For Local Governments

MADISON, WI -- Today, Senator Rob Stafsholt (R - New Richmond), released the following statement after his bill passed through the Senate this week, which cuts fees for property owners and gives more funding to our local governments.

Senator Stafsholt said, "This bill solves two important issues seen around the state - excess fees for property owners and local governments in need of additional funds to provide for their communities. The same bill solving two separate issues doesn’t happen very often in Madison, but that’s exactly what this does.”

Senate Bill 274 cuts the Real Estate Property Tax by a third, while at the same time increases the amount of revenue counties keep from the tax, instead of the state.  The real estate transfer tax is usually imposed on the seller of real estate property. To pay the tax, a return is filed and collected with the tax by the register of deeds at the county level. Currently, only 20% of the fee is retained by the county, while 80% is collected by the state.

“We are changing the distribution because the Register of Deeds at the county does the work to complete the transfer, so it’s just common sense for more of the fee to go back to the county, who actually does the transfer.”

Even though the bill is lowering the fee, counties would not see any loss in revenue generated from the transfer fee under this bill, because the bill gradually increases the distribution of the fee the county retains over an incremental period. Under the bill, counties would not see any changes in revenue from the fee in the first two years, but would see an increase in the third year and after.

“Wisconsin currently has a large budget surplus in the billions. While this means we are not facing crushing debt, it also means the state has collected too much money from the taxpayers. By reducing state revenues, we’re saving property owners more of their hard-earned money by slashing this fee, while also delivering more funds for our local governments, which goes towards supporting our infrastructure, public safety, and other resources. That’s a win for everyone”, added Senator Stafsholt.