{"id":8845,"date":"2024-02-07T19:07:28","date_gmt":"2024-02-07T20:07:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/?p=8845"},"modified":"2024-02-07T20:57:15","modified_gmt":"2024-02-07T20:57:15","slug":"wmc-and-wmc-litigation-center-celebrate-courts-decision-to-strike-down-illegal-transportation-tax","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/?p=8845","title":{"rendered":"WMC and WMC Litigation Center Celebrate Court\u2019s Decision to Strike Down Illegal Transportation Tax"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>This post originally appeared at <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wmc.org\/press-releases\/wmc-and-wmc-litigation-center-celebrate-courts-decision-to-strike-down-illegal-transportation-tax\/\">https:\/\/www.wmc.org\/press-releases\/wmc-and-wmc-litigation-center-celebrate-courts-decision-to-strike-down-illegal-transportation-tax\/<\/a><\/p>\n<p><strong>MADISON<\/strong> \u2013 On Wednesday, the Court of Appeals struck down the Village of Pewaukee\u2019s transportation utility fee, confirming the charge is an illegal tax. Wisconsin Manufacturers &amp; Commerce (WMC) \u2013 the combined state chamber and manufacturers\u2019 association \u2013 celebrates the ruling as a victory for taxpayers and the business community.<\/p>\n<p>Transportation utility fees have been adopted in many Wisconsin municipalities to generate revenue to fund local projects while avoiding the limits on property taxes. This strategy has allowed many municipalities, including the Village of Pewaukee, to impose these charges on tax-exempt property and exceed their levy limits. In its lawsuit against Pewaukee, WMC argued that transportation utility fees disproportionately impact businesses, which violates the constitutional uniformity requirement.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe Court of Appeals\u2019 ruling against Pewaukee is an important win for taxpayers and the economy,\u201d said WMC Litigation Center Executive Director Scott Rosenow, who handled this lawsuit against Pewaukee. \u201cThis victory helps combat a recent trend by local governments in Wisconsin: creating unlawful property taxes and calling them fees to try to avoid limits on property taxes.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Last June, the Wisconsin Supreme Court unanimously struck down the Town of Buchanan\u2019s transportation utility fee as an unlawful property tax. Although Pewaukee and the League of Wisconsin Municipalities argued that the Buchanan ruling was not applicable in this case, the Court of Appeals concluded otherwise, holding that Pewaukee\u2019s transportation utility fee is an illegal tax for the same reasons that Buchanan\u2019s was.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWith this ruling against Pewaukee, a Wisconsin appellate court has again correctly confirmed that transportation utility fees are unlawful,\u201d Rosenow continued. \u201cWe\u2019re pleased with the decision to uphold Wisconsin law and protect taxpayers from ever-increasing, limitless taxes.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"text-decoration: underline\"><a href=\"https:\/\/media.wmc.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/07124321\/Court-of-Appeals-decision-2.7.2024-reversing-circuit-court.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Click here to read the Court of Appeals decision.\u00a0<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center\">###<\/p>\n<p>The post <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wmc.org\/press-releases\/wmc-and-wmc-litigation-center-celebrate-courts-decision-to-strike-down-illegal-transportation-tax\/\">WMC and WMC Litigation Center Celebrate Court\u2019s Decision to Strike Down Illegal Transportation Tax<\/a> appeared first on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wmc.org\">WMC Wisconsin&#8217;s Chamber <\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This post originally appeared at https:\/\/www.wmc.org\/press-releases\/wmc-and-wmc-litigation-center-celebrate-courts-decision-to-strike-down-illegal-transportation-tax\/ MADISON \u2013 On Wednesday, the Court of Appeals struck&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":440,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8845","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-wmc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8845","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8845"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8845\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8846,"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8845\/revisions\/8846"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/440"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8845"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8845"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8845"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}