Local property tax Investor-owned electric utilities whose property and customers are all located in a single municipality are subject to local property taxes. There are 82 municipal electric utilities in Wisconsin. Non-utility electric generators which do not qualify as qualified wholesale electric companies are subject to local property taxes, and are locally assessed and classified as commercial property. Federal restructuring efforts have created a new industry, electric marketing and broker services. Electric brokers merely match buyers and sellers, much as a stock broker or real estate broker does.
Marketers actually buy power for resale.
It is not known how many of these firms operate in Wisconsin since they are not regulated and information on them is hard to obtain. If these firms have real or personal property in Wisconsin, it would be locally assessed as commercial property and subject to local property taxes. It is common for large manufacturing companies, notably paper manufacturers, to produce their own electricity, with occasional sales to utilities. These power plants are state-assessed as manufacturing property and subject to local property taxes. There are currently 12 such companies in Wisconsin.