Since the organization of the Territory of Wisconsin, local governments have been required to assess the value of real estate and personal property in their jurisdictions and levy and collect taxes based on that assessment. In addition to collecting their own taxes, municipalities must also collect their share of taxes levied by the state, by the county, by school districts and in recent years by other special districts. These include vocational, technical and adult education districts, sewer districts, and inland lake protection and rehabilitation districts.
The procedure for assessing property and collecting taxes has remained essentially unchanged since 1836. An appointed local assessor calculates the value of taxable real estate and personal property in the municipality and enters that amount on the assessment roll along with a description of the property. The roll is forwarded to the local clerk (to a county clerk during the territorial period) who makes it available for public inspection. Individual taxpayers may then file objections with the Board of Review which is empowered to adjust assessments.
From this corrected assessment roll, the municipal clerk prepares a new record, the tax roll, which shows the assessed value and amount of taxes levied against each parcel of real estate and each owner of personal property. The finished tax roll is sent to the municipal treasurer for collection with payments being recorded directly on the roll. (Prior to 1868, a separate tax roll was not required, the levy of taxes being recorded directly on the tax roll.)
After a date and in a manner specified by the statute, the municipal treasurer settles accounts with the county and other jurisdictions for which the municipality has collected taxes. While the early statutes make no definite mention of the disposition of the tax rolls, local treasurers have been required since 1870 to transfer them to the county treasurer at the time of final settlement. The county treasurer then assumes responsibility for the collection of the remaining delinquent or delayed taxes. Since 1935 municipalities have had the option of retaining the personal property portion of the tax roll and collecting those delinquent taxes locally.
Current legislation relating to assessment and tax collection can be found in Chapters 70, 73, 74, and 75 of the Wisconsin Statutes. The role of the county in tax collection is described in detail in volume one of the Wisconsin Historical Records Survey's County Government in Wisconsin, Madison, 1942.
