Green Bay Reporter

A tax and spending transparency bill was recently signed into law in Wisconsin.

Sen. Rob Cowles (R-Green Bay, 2nd District) and Rep. Samanath Kerkman (R-Salem) successfully created the bill, which requires reports on how tax money is spent to be published for citizens to see. 

The bill requires the Department of Revenue to post graphs and charts about how tax money spent on its website within about six months to create transparency and public records. 

"A bill I authored with Rep. @SamanthaKerkman to create an online Tax Accountability Dashboard was signed into law yesterday," Cowles said in a post to his Twitter account on July 9. "Act 66 will help residents see and understand where their tax dollars are being spent through accessible and clear charts and data."

While previous legislature resulted in existing requirements for publishing information about collected taxes, this bill requires a new portion that is meant to better inform citizens of where their money is actually going. Sources for this information will be individual income taxes, sales taxes, and corporate income and franchise taxes.

A similar local government dashboard was created for the 2017-2019 state budget.