March 25, 2019

On Wednesday, March 21, several WAFO memberse met with Department of Revenue Secretary Peter Barca, Deputy Secretary David Casey, and their team to discuss property tax bill transparency and other issues affecting private woodland owners.

WAFO members John and Carol Nielsen, Wayne Raisleger, Richard Wedepohl and Executive Director Kristie Kasbohm attended this meeting. We were especially pleased that Senator Janet Bewley and Representative Jeff Mursau were also able to join us.

Secretary Barca was very interested in learning more about the important role private woodland owners play in protecting Wisconsin’s forest lands and the raw material we provide for our forest products industry. As a side note, in Governor Evers budget submittal, he noted that it was important to “strengthen our support for forest owners and project jobs in our $26 billion forest products sector.”

At this meeting, a major portion of our discussion related to the issue of landowners being provided with information on how their land is classified and then differentially taxed. We provided Secretary Barca with a copy of our “A Landowners Guide to Understanding Your Property Tax Bill” and shared that we were currently working with his staff on issues related to property tax transparency.  

As an example, we highlighted a case we’re currently working on to help members Steve and Tricia Aeschlimann resolve a problem they discovered when they had to withdraw 5 acres of land from the MFL to fix an eligibility issue with their enrollment. Expecting a penalty of $195, they were shocked when they received a notice that they owed $3900! Unfortunately neither they, nor their forester, realized the assessor had improperly classified the withdrawn land as Productive Forest instead of Agriculture. READ MORE ABOUT THEIR CASE

The following day, we attended a DOR-sponsored meeting with an advisory group that is comprised of local government officials and assessors.  At that meeting we again highlighted the problem with property tax bill transparency by noting that MFL landowners cannot find classification information on county websites where it is said to be available.    

Bottom Line:  We’ll continue to work with DOR and our legislators. Importantly, Representative Mursau and Senator Bewley indicated they will work with us on developing any new law changes that may be needed to provide landowners with better tax bill information along with making additional improvements to the MFL.