Individual income tax cuts in Wisconsin have resulted in more than $7 billion in tax relief over the past decade or so, according to a new Forward Analytics report.
The research group, part of the Wisconsin Counties Association, yesterday released an analysis of changes to state income taxes from 2012 to 2023. Rates were lowered several times during the study period, leading to lower tax rates across all of the state’s income tax brackets.
But the report shows the largest cuts by percentage went to single filers with income below $48,000 and married-joint filers with incomes below $68,000, both of whose tax rates were reduced by 24-26%.
Authors wrote that “savings generally declined” at higher incomes, as single filers with incomes between $400,000 and $600,000 and married-joint files with incomes between $530,000 and $800,000 had their tax rates lowered by 10-15%. And those with incomes above $1 million had their rates lowered by 8% or less.
“While the impact of the tax rate cuts was significant for nearly all filers, many may have experienced, in real life, a lesser decline due to rising incomes,” report authors wrote.
Wisconsin had five income tax brackets in 2012, but that has since been changed to four. Five tax cuts during the study period have led to lower rates in the current four brackets, the report shows.
In the lowest income tax bracket, rates have dropped from 4.6% to 3.5%. In the second-lowest, rates have gone from 6.15% to 4.4%. The third bracket — which was created by merging two brackets in 2013 — went from 6.5% and 6.75% to 5.3%. And the fourth, or top bracket, saw the smallest change, from 7.75% to 7.65%.
The report also includes an assessment of the state’s income tax competitiveness, with authors noting cuts have generally improved Wisconsin’s ranking across various measures. But as other states have enacted tax cuts of their own, improvements have been “not as large as might be expected,” authors wrote.
Ultimately, changes in Wisconsin and in other states resulted in “an improvement in Wisconsin’s competitiveness in its bottom rate and a slight worsening” of its rate for top earners.
The state’s bottom rate has moved from fourth-highest among 35 comparable states in 2012 to eighth-highest in 2025 among states with graduated income tax. Meanwhile, its top rate has moved from the 11th or 10th-highest — depending on which states are included in the comparison — to ninth-highest among 27 comparable states.
