History
In the late 19th century, as the economy was shifting, Wisconsin's farmers began to raise concerns that the property-based tax system placed a disproportionate burden on them while many newer industries and corporations were able to escape taxation by hiding their property in other financial instruments. Milwaukee attorney Kossuth Kent Kennan, then a tax attorney working for the Wisconsin Central Railroad, was the first to draft and propose a state tax commission to investigate and propose reforms to the taxation system. [2] Kennan convinced a legislator to introduce his proposal in the 1889 session of the Legislature, but it was not enacted. Kennan continued his efforts for several more years, and, in 1897, when the last hurdle to passage was the Legislature's reluctance to appropriate $6,000 for the project, Kennan pledged to raise the money himself to fund his commission. The bill passed as 1897 Wisconsin Act 340. [3]
The first Wisconsin Tax Commission was a short-term study of existing tax policy. Kennan, along with former congressman Burr W. Jones and attorney George Curtis, Jr., were charged with producing a report by the end of 1898. The report laid out the inequities of the current system, substantiating the concerns of the farmers that other non-tangible forms of property were being taxed at a substantial discount, and that the entire system suffered from inconsistent valuation and irregular assessment. They suggested that, in addition to reforms to tax law, the state required a new system of tax administration by trained, objective, non-elected state officials. [3]
The Legislature responded to their report and the Tax Commission was reauthorized for another ten years, with a mandate to investigate and supervise the state taxation system (1899 Wisconsin Act 206). Under the new Progressive Republican Governor Robert M. La Follette, who came into office two years later, the commission's mandate was considerably expanded to give them power over tax equalization in the state, and additional powers to enjoin local tax officials. Finally, in 1905, the Tax Commission was made a permanent entity of state government, with three commissioners each appointed to eight-year terms. [3]
In 1939, a major reorganization under Governor Julius P. Heil converted the previous three-member Tax Commission into a Department of Taxation headed by a single commissioner, while creating the separate entity known as the Wisconsin Tax Appeals Commission, now attached to the Wisconsin Department of Administration.
The Department of Revenue was created in 1967 from the previous Department of Taxation as part of the state government reorganization plan proposed by the "Kellett Commission," named for chairman William R. Kellett.
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