State efforts to overhaul tax laws to continue regardless of D.C. outcome on tax bills

No matter what the final outcome of the Congressional tax bills are, in the end they’ll mostly be minor adjustments to the federal tax code.

That’s the view of Wisconsin Republican Assemblyman John Macco of Green Bay. He’s spearheading an effort within his party to pull off something far more sweeping in the state tax code.

When asked if that would ruffle some feathers, Macco said, “Oh my gosh, absolutely. We are going to have every special interest group that you can possibly imagine, screaming and yelling and having a fit.”

Macco’s recently announced tax reform efforts don’t have a specific timeline. But, the Assembly’s Ways and Means committee said the reforms will involve taxes on the local and state level and include sales, income and property taxes – a massive and sweeping tax overhaul within state law.

“We didn’t need them to do it,” Macco said. “We were well on our way of doing something here for the citizens of Wisconsin but the fact that they’re doing something in D.C., makes it even better for the folks here and makes our work even a little more important.”

There are no details yet in the tax change ideas. Just that it will involve all taxes and the common theme of all changes will be pretty simple.

“We can broaden the base and lower the rate and that would be beneficial to everybody here,” Macco said.