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Good news has arrived for citizens of the five Wisconsin counties charged with higher sales tax to help pay for Miller Park — the tax is ending.
Yesterday, we passed a bill that finally sets an end date for the Miller Park Stadium sales tax. The 0.1% tax will end for good on March 31, 2020. Over the past 24 years, almost $600 million has been collected from taxpayers to pay for an initial debt that totaled $160 million. pic.twitter.com/vljuYD39TI
— Sen. Chris Kapenga (@SenatorKapenga) November 6, 2019
The Wisconsin legislature passed a bill back in 1996 to help fund the Brewers’ new stadium. All sales made within Milwaukee, Waukesha, Ozaukee, Washington and Racine counties have an extra 0.1% tariff that gets used for the stadium project. Since being passed, the sales tax has collected $600,000,000. As a benefit to the fans that live in those counties and pay the tax, the Brewers offer annual discounts to residents of those areas.
The current law says that the tax would end when the bonds and reserve requirements of the stadium district are met. That’s expected to happen early in 2020. The tax would then be prohibited after Aug. 31, 2020. According to the bill, any excess revenue from the tax is to be collected and redistributed to the five counties on a per-capita basis. That money would be used for property tax relief, public safety, parks and recreation or economic development.