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Wisconsin data center tax break to cost state more than $2 billion

From JSOnline:

Tom Kertscher

Wisconsin Watch

This story was produced and originally published by Wisconsin Watch, a nonprofit, nonpartisan newsroom. It was made possible by donors like you.

Wisconsin is poised to forgo more than $2 billion in sales tax revenue to subsidize hyperscale data centers built by trillion-dollar companies such as Microsoft and Meta.

Data centers were granted a sales tax exemption in the 2023-25 state budget, which was approved by the Republican-controlled Legislature and Democratic Gov. Tony Evers as a way to attract economic development to the state.

That means the $1 billion data center in Beaver Dam, a $20 billion complex in Mount Pleasant and a $15 billion facility in Port Washington don’t have to pay the 5% state sales tax, or local sales taxes, on purchases for constructing and equipping their facilities.

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When the budget passed in July 2023, the scale of the data center boom was so uncertain that the nonpartisan Legislative Fiscal Bureau did not estimate how much state revenue would be “forgone” under the exemption, aside from a hypothetical example.

But now a fiscal bureau projection is in:

The state will be out $1.5 billion in forgone state sales tax revenue during construction, which can take years, plus $369 million annually once the facilities are built.

The estimates apply to the hyperscale data centers under construction in Beaver Dam and Port Washington and the facilities under construction or planned in Mount Pleasant. A much smaller Epic project in Verona is also part of the estimate.

It’s unclear whether the data centers would have been built in Wisconsin without the tax incentive.

“Obviously it's a big number, but it’s right to think that this is not really revenue that the state realistically could have ever captured,” said economist Ross Milton, a state government tax expert at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

“It seems quite likely that if Wisconsin wasn't providing incentives of these kinds, we wouldn't be seeing these data centers being built here.”

Highlighting the fierce competition for development, 38 states offer data center sales tax exemptions or other tax breaks, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.

Wisconsin offers sales tax exemptions for a wide array of products and services. One of the largest exempts food bought at the grocery store, which reduced state revenue by about $920 million in 2024.

Tricia Braun, executive director of the Wisconsin Data Center Coalition, a business group that supports data center development, pointed out that the fiscal bureau projection does not include economic benefits from data centers, including taxes paid by data center suppliers.

Wisconsin Watch reported in March that just three Wisconsin companies have done more than $1 billion in business supplying data centers.

Jason Stein, president of the Wisconsin Policy Forum, a nonpartisan think tank, said “the state has good possibilities for recovering” the forgone revenue. That could come from spending by construction workers and income taxes paid by those workers, their employers and permanent data center employees, as well as corporate income taxes and utility taxes, he said.

The unexpectedly large amount of forgone revenue has helped fuel efforts for data center regulation.

State Sen. Jodi Habush Sinykin, D-Whitefish Bay, who requested the estimate, said lawmakers should discuss what the state can get in return for the exemption. She said the exemption could be tied to, for example, requirements to protect the environment.

Habush Sinykin wants the Legislature, which Republicans control, to convene what is known as an extraordinary session to discuss a variety of data center bills, rather than waiting until the next regular session in January.

Sen. Romaine Quinn, R-Birchwood, and Rep. Shannon Zimmerman, R-River Falls, introduced legislation in 2023 that led to the exemption and have proposed expanding it. They did not respond to requests for comment.

Their original legislation received more than 200 hours of lobbying support from Microsoft, power companies such as We Energies and Alliant Energy, and business groups. No one registered to lobby against the bill.

Nationally, state data center legislation has shifted from incentives to regulation.

In 2021 and 2022, 44 of the 45 data center bills introduced in states across the U.S. offered tax and economic incentives, according to an analysis released April 22. Since then, many other types of legislation have emerged. In 2026, only 61 of the 262 state data center bills covered incentives. The vast majority dealt with regulation of energy, environment and transparency.

Some states, including Minnesota, have taken steps to restrict or roll back data center sales tax exemptions.

Data center opponent Shawn Haney, a former elected town board member in Dane County, said he understands that Wisconsin created its sales tax exemption to attract economic development. But he thinks it should be modified so that the state can collect some sales tax revenue from data centers.

“I don't think anybody could have forecasted the size and magnitude of these massive data centers,” Haney said.

“You could do some good things with” the revenue, he said, tossing out a few ideas. “Look at all the roads we have to repair.”

From: https://www.jsonline.com/story/money/business/2026/04/27/wisconsin-data-center-tax-break-to-cost-state-more-than-2-billion/89780055007/

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Trump administration tells Wisconsin to 'undo' full FoodShare payments. Evers says 'No'

From JSOnline:

Molly Beck

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

MADISON – The Trump administration late Saturday told Wisconsin state officials to "undo" their fulfillment of food assistance benefits amid a court battle over funding the nation's anti-hunger programs during the longest federal government shutdown in U.S. history.

The directive to all state officials from the U.S. Department of Agriculture came after the Evers administration discovered the U.S. Treasury had rejected reimbursing Wisconsin grocers for food purchased by participants in Wisconsin's food assistance program, known as FoodShare, according to the Evers administration.

Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers had a one-word response to the directive: "No."

In a statement, he said Wisconsin "legally loaded benefits to cards."

"Our administration is actively in court fighting against the Trump Administration’s efforts to yank food assistance away from Wisconsin’s kids, families, and seniors, and we are eager for the court to resolve this issue by directing the Trump Administration to comply with court orders and provide the certainty to the many Wisconsin families and businesses who rely on FoodShare," he said in the statement.

Nearly 700,000 FoodShare recipients received their full November allotment of benefits after Evers' health department officials pushed through a request to fill the recipients' card balances after a federal judge on Thursday demanded the Trump administration fully fund the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program through the government shutdown.

But while the recipients' cards had balances available to spend through lines of credit, the Treasury had rejected sending money to cover those purchases to grocers and other businesses that accept such cards, according to an Evers administration official.

After the U.S. Supreme Court on Friday granted a stay of the ruling compelling the Trump administration to pay the benefits, Agriculture officials sent memos to state officials asking them to "immediately undo" any actions to direct funding to their residents using food assistance cards.

The officials said in the memo that any move to fully fund benefits, like Wisconsin had done, was "unauthorized."

The Agriculture officials also noted that failure to comply would result in funding reductions to administer their food assistance programs.

Evers said in a court filing Saturday that without the reimbursement approval from U.S. Treasury, known as a line of credit, the state will be no longer be able to send funds to retailers for the purchases made by FoodShare recipients by Monday.

Hundreds of thousands of Wisconsin residents received full food benefits early Friday after state officials moved to release the funding after a federal judge ordered the Trump administration to fully fund the program.

More than $104 million in benefits were paid to 337,000 households at midnight, a spokeswoman for Evers said Friday, Nov. 7. The federal funding was distributed after the Evers administration made a request late Thursday, before the Trump administration sought to block the order.

The Evers administration expects the U.S. Department of Agriculture to at least make partial funding available to divert to retailers, according to an Evers spokeswoman.

"Based on what the state knows today, Wisconsin does not expect any immediate impacts for FoodShare members while the state continues to work to secure funds owed from the federal government," she said.

Federal subsidies for meals have become a flashpoint in the fight between Democrats and Republicans who have been unable to agree on a new bill to fund the government, leading to a federal government shutdown now in its 40th day.

Funding for SNAP benefits, known as FoodShare in Wisconsin, expired Nov. 1 amid the shutdown.

Since then, two federal judges issued orders to compel the Trump administration to tap into contingency funds to keep SNAP payments moving, but the Trump administration said it would fund only a portion of the benefits.

Doing so would cause long delays, because the systems set up to distribute benefits would need to be overhauled to release a smaller amount.

If the Trump administration funded the program at the reduced level, grocers would be reimbursed, according to the Evers administration.

The Trump administration said it does not have enough funds to pay full benefits.

"This is a crisis, to be sure, but it is a crisis occasioned by congressional failure, and that can only be solved by congressional action," Trump administration wrote in a court filing seeking the emergency stay.

Molly Beck can be reached at molly.beck@jrn.com.

(This story was updated to add new information.)

From: https://www.jsonline.com/story/news/politics/2025/11/09/trump-administration-asks-wisconsin-to-undo-full-foodshare-payments/87182615007/

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