Tim Michels says he ‘always spent 183 days’ a year in Wisconsin

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When asked if her children had graduated from high school in Connecticut and New York, Michels replied, “They did.” He added: “We probably could have gone back a few years ago.”

Republican gubernatorial candidate Tim Michels told talk show host Dan O’Donnell his family moved with him to New York for a major subway project in 2013, but said he had spent more time in Wisconsin than in the east.

Michels acknowledged that he spent just enough time in Wisconsin to be considered a resident for tax purposes.

Michels said he “always spends 183 days in Wisconsin” a year, at least, except for 2015. That year he spent more than 183 days in New York, so he had to pay taxes in that State.

Michels, the co-owner of Wisconsin-headquartered Michels Corp., said he moved his family east for the subway project which ended in 2016, the year his eldest son graduated from a high school in New York.

The family remained in the New York area for years after this project ended.

Her daughter graduated from a high school in New York in 2019 and her youngest son graduated from a high school in Connecticut in 2021. These are not boarding schools.

Essentially, Michels confirmed all of the facts claimed in Wisconsin Right Now’s May 1, 2022 story about his residency.

We asked the Michels campaign to interview him today after O’Donnell’s interview. However, they declined the request. Previously, Michels’ campaign failed to respond to a long list of questions sent to him on April 24, a week before our story. They also did not respond to a follow-up request for comment.

Of his family’s presence on the East Coast, where they own a $17 million home in Connecticut, he told O’Donnell, “We expected this to happen at some point in the countryside. Wisconsin Right Now came out ahead of us.

Some have incorrectly claimed that we stated outright that Michels lives largely in Connecticut. We do not have. We asked about how long he’s lived in Wisconsin for the past decade, asking: Where have Tim Michels and his wife lived since 2013? Did Michels and his wife pay taxes and vote as residents of Wisconsin? And we noted that his campaign refused to answer these questions, among others.

“Voters have a right to know if a Wisconsin gubernatorial candidate has actually lived in the state for the past decade. One would think that a campaign could easily answer these questions,” we wrote.

Michels’ appearance on O’Donnell’s show was in response to the Wisconsin Right Now story which revealed that Michels’ three children attended and graduated from high schools in Connecticut and New York in 2013 to 2021, and that Michels and his wife, Barbara, have purchased three major properties in the east in that time frame, raising residency questions.

O’Donnell asked if it was safe to say that Michels and his family’s life focused on the East Coast, noting that Barbara Michels’ Facebook likes focused almost exclusively on East Coast interests like clubs. of polo and yacht.

“My children’s lives may have been. Of course, my wife goes to the mother, and she spent a lot of time there as well,” Michels said. But he noted, “I’m the guy on the ballot.”

Michels falsely told O’Donnell that WRN had not informed readers of his family’s large donation to the Medical College of Wisconsin last month. In fact, the story reported on this donation, and we even ran a video of a TV report on this press conference in the article.

This article said:

“We are proud to live in Wisconsin,” said Tim Michels, announcing a large family donation, this time to the Medical College of Wisconsin, in honor of his daughter’s brain tumor recovery. A CBS-58 story referred to them as the “Dodge County family.”

Other than this false claim, Michels hasn’t refuted a single fact in Wisconsin Right Now’s history.

According to Michels, his residence has been “very tightly controlled” by the Wisconsin and New York revenue departments, as he pays “millions and millions” of dollars in taxes. It says this is documented and recorded (we have previously requested these records to no avail).

“If you spent 183 days in a state, that’s where you had to pay taxes,” he said.

Madison.com reported that Michels says he “spent most of my time in Wisconsin” and blamed “special interests in Madison” for the Wisconsin Right Now report, “although he didn’t specified how long he spent in or out of state.”

It’s unclear what “special interests in Madison” Michels is referring to. Wisconsin Right Now is the most popular conservative news site in the state outside of talk radio.

Michels spoke about the subway project to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

“It took a lot of surveillance — you know, I practically had to live there,” he told the Journal Sentinel. “And the whole family decided that we all wanted to go and stay together. So there was a good chunk of a four-year period that the project took place while we were all living in New York.

For O’Donnell, he emphasized, “I have nothing to hide. I think people deserve to hear answers and always be told the truth.

Michels said his “primary residence” was Waukesha County in Hartland, where he has lived for 14 years, and Oconomowoc before that.

“We had a big project in New York,” Michels explained.

When asked if her three children graduated from high school in Connecticut and New York, Michels replied, “They did, and here’s why.”

He then began a lengthy discussion about the Michels’ bidding process for the major Manhattan tunnel project.

“I told my brother I was going to keep this one,” he says. He said he spoke to his wife and said, “Honey, there’s a big project in New York. I need to spend a lot of time there. She said, “We want to support you, let’s all go.” The whole family ended up supporting me while we were in New York.

He said his daughter was a senior in high school and “doing great.” They didn’t want to go back to Wisconsin to disrupt his senior year.

However, their daughter graduated from high school in 2019 and the family purchased the Connecticut home the next year. Michels’ youngest son then attended high school in Greenwich, Connecticut, graduating in 2021. They still own the home.

Michels said his son is a competitive sailor. He slammed Wisconsin Right Now for calling his son’s sporting pursuits a “yacht”, saying he laughed because his son had a 16ft two-person boat “like you see at the Olympics”. He said his son was a top college recruit in sailing.

We didn’t choose the word yacht out of the blue. The son was listed as skipper for the LISOT Yacht Club in 2019 in the Indian Harbor Yacht Club Atlantic Coast I-420 Championships. His boat is listed under “yacht information”. See below:

Tim Michels O'Donnell“Life brings circumstances and you ride with them,” Michels said. He said he’s done the right thing for his family and his business and claimed he’s “always been a Wisconsin resident” who goes “where duty calls.”

O’Donnell mentioned that the subway project ended in 2016, six years ago, and said, “You bought your house in Connecticut. It seems to me that the intention was to domicile.

Michels said the company “took over” a major bridge project in Brooklyn after the subway ended “about three years ago.” He said he “goes where the action is”.

In 2015, when the tunnel project was at its “peak”, he paid taxes in New York. He admitted: “I was not happy. One year I got caught in New York for spending too many days there. I did what had to be done.

He said his children’s friends “are back here, their hearts are back in Wisconsin” and he accused the critics of “playing politics”.

He said he had voted “all the time” in Wisconsin for the past 10 years, indicating he had “never categorized himself as a resident of New York to anyone.” He said he had voted by mail a few times, but it was an early voting situation. “I have never dropped a ballot in the mail from another state,” he said.

When asked why he didn’t answer questions or be “more candid” when Wisconsin Right Now inquired about these issues on April 24, he replied, “We weren’t dodging anything. We have been very busy. We announced it a week ago.

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