Tax-Shy Randy Hopper's $250 Million Yearly Capital Gains Giveaway
Tax Avoiding Senator Proposes Deficit-Growing Tax Break Primarily Helping Wealthy
Madison -
Sen. Randy Hopper (R-Fond du Lac), who paid net state income taxes once in ten years, has proposed an end to capital gains taxes, which primarily benefit the wealthy and would cost $250 million a year, according to the non-partisan Wisconsin Legislative Fiscal Bureau.
Hopper introduced his plan this week to repeal recent changes to the state's generous capital gains loophole and end capital gains taxes all together in three years. The first part of this plan would add $243 million to the current to the current $3.3 billion budget deficit for the next two years and full implementation of the Hopper capital gains scheme would top $250 million every year. [Legislative Fiscal Bureau, Act 28, 8/09][/b]
Hopper's lack of tax payment was raised in an article in the Fond du Lac Reporter in October 2008.
The article noted that Hopper not only paid state income tax just once in ten years, but also had three businesses, which also paid no net state income tax. According to the article, "In 2006 he paid $22,752 in state tax due, he said, to capital gains from the sale of one of the two radio stations he owns in Sheboygan."
..... Capital gains tax breaks are given disproportionately to those at the top of the income ladder. According to the data from the state fiscal bureau, before the change to the Wisconsin capital gains tax in 2009, the highest two percent of Wisconsin tax filers earning over $200,000 got over half the benefit. By contrast, the bottom two-thirds of income earners, those under $50,000, got just 15 percent. [Wisconsin Council on Children and Families, 6/22/09]
http://www.onewisconsinnow.org/pres...50-million-yearly-capital-gains-giveaway.html