MILWAUKEE — The State Senate has officially set an end date for the 5-county Miller Park tax.
The State Senate passed Assembly Bill 73, which prohibits the collection of the Miller Park tax. It will go into effect on August 31, 2020.
Since January 1, 1996, a 0.1% tax has been collected on all sales in Racine, Milwaukee, Ozaukee, Washington and Waukesha counties to pay for the construction and maintenance of Miller Park. $600 million dollars has been collected in that time.
In the last couple months local governments and interest groups have been quietly pushing to extend, or repurpose the tax for another purpose.
"Today is a great day for taxpayers in southeastern Wisconsin," said bill author Senator Van Wanggaard (R-Racine). "This has been a long time coming, and the taxpayers have paid more than their share to keep the Brewers and baseball in Wisconsin. Finally, they will have to pay no more."
The bill now goes to Governor Evers for his signature. The stadium district board has stated publicly its intention to certify the end of the tax in March of 2020. Any excess revenue collected before the end of the tax will be redistributed to the five counties on a per-capita basis.
