Georgist Registry Annual Report

Wisconsin Property Owners League

Wisconsin Property Owners League, Inc. (WPOL) was founded and incorporated in 1970. It is a non-profit, non-stock Wisconsin corporation. WPOL was organized after the first city-wide reassessment in the city of Beloit in several decades. Initially WPOL was mostly a protest group, but responsible leadership (Armin Jocz was then Pres.) directed activities toward solutions of problems.

WPOL's Mission: "This organization shall be non-profit, non-partisan, and non-sectarian, and shall pursue the purpose of promoting equitable property taxes, working toward reform of the existing tax structure where needed, and as necessary urging wise expenditures of tax monies."

WPOL's newsletter goes to members who pay $4 individual and $5 family memberships. The newsletter may be subscribed to for $3. Complimentary copies of the newsletter are also sent to elected and administrative officials and to the media.

In 1971 WPOL endorsed revenue-neutral land (site) value taxation (exempting improvements) in lieu of the land-and-buildings presently structured property tax. Almost all homeowners would come out with lower tax bills. Discouraged would be the widespread land speculation that was causing the city's sprawl. A tax boost would be felt by owners of vacant and derelict lots, who would then feel encouraged to put the site to more productive use or sell to someone who would. Local option enabling legislation for the site tax was introduced in 1971, 1973, 1975, and 1977. A 1979 Attorney General Opinion that the local option provision did not conform to Art. VIII, Sec. 1 of the Wisconsin Constitution ("Rule of Taxation shall be uniform") caused subsequent legislation for constitutional amendments to be introduced in 1979, 1981, and 1983.

A bill for a state study of land value taxation passed the Senate (but was not considered in the Assembly) in 1992. Prior to introduction of the study legislation, WPOL did a complete compilation in 1989 of data for all Wisconsin counties, charting figures for each county's public school enrollment, total county population, county's full value of general property, total general property tax levy, total state property tax credit, total local tax levy for county's municipalities, and total property values (both land and improvements) by property classifications. (One potential way to achieve a modified land value tax, which WPOL already researched in 1989, is by incorporating land value taxation into the state's equalized valuation school aids formula.)

Activities: The WPOL Exec. Com. meets monthly. WPOL has hosted a public-invited candidates forum for Beloit City Council and School Board candidates annually since 1971. A pre-forum questionnaire is sent to candidates and their responses are compiled into a tabulation that is distributed at the forum. As done annually since 1972, WPOL's spring newsletter also contains the voting record on major issues of the City Council incumbents whose terms are expiring. WPOL monitors--and summarizes in the WPOL newsletter--major state legislative developments. WPOL annually participates in the Veterans Memorial Day parade.