Wisconsin seeks to end religious tax exemption after Supreme Court loss to Catholic group

October 23, 2025

The state of Wisconsin is considering eliminating a religious tax exemption altogether rather than grant one to a Catholic charity organization that the Supreme Court ruled unanimously cannot be denied the benefit.

The Christian Post reports that Wisconsin Attorney General Josh Kaul filed a remedial brief on Monday, in regards to a case brought by the Catholic Charities Bureau.

Kaul claimed that the high court “did not prescribe a particular remedy” when it sided with the charity earlier in June over its bid for an exemption from the state’s unemployment insurance program.

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Catholic Charities Bureau, Inc. v. Wisconsin Labor Review Commission et al. that the Catholic charity group can be exempted from an unemployment insurance program even though the state considers its services nonreligious.

According to Kaul, the only two options left to the state were “expanding the statutory exemption to groups like Catholic Charities” or “eliminating it altogether.”

The Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, which has been representing Catholic Charities Bureau, filed a supplemental brief denouncing the request to remove the tax exemption fully, arguing that “Wisconsin long ago forfeited any claim to request that Catholic Charities’ remedy be anything other than receiving the exemption.”

The brief goes on to state: “Wisconsin should have raised that issue well before reversal and remand by the United States Supreme Court. It should have made those arguments in a timely fashion so that this Court and the United States Supreme Court had an opportunity to evaluate them.”

When the Supreme Court unanimously ruled in favor of CCB in June, Justice Sonia Sotomayor in the court’s opinion, concluded that the Catholic charity could not be denied the exemption because its work was considered secular. 

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