Tax Freeze Fails

Efforts by Republicans in Wisconsin to freeze property taxes met Gov. Jim Doyle’s veto pen in February. The bill, while politically popular, provided no guarantees of alternative methods of fund raising. As a result, it would have denied school districts the ability to raise property taxes, Doyle said, potentially hurting the state’s education system. In other states, such as Florida, “rollbacks” of property taxes have resulted in a shifting of the tax burden to things such as utilities, user fees, and franchise fees.