Gov. Pat Quinn and many groups in Illinois are pushing for the state’s next multibillion dollar tax increase – a progressive income tax. Passing a progressive income tax is “one of my goals before I stop breathing,” Quinn said. There has been a lot of misinformation about the progressive income tax floating around. It’s time to...
President Barack Obama has won a second term, giving him what he described earlier this year as “more flexibility” in his policy choices. Will one of those choices be bailing out state pensions? All across the country, states are grappling with pension systems that are massively underfunded. Under new accounting rules, Illinois’ unfunded pension debt stands...
Last night, California Gov. Jerry Brown asked Californians to pay higher income taxes. Fifty-four percent of voters opted for the tax increase. A similar scenario is beginning to play out in Illinois. Under California’s current progressive income tax structure, the second-highest marginal rate of 9.3 percent kicks in at just $48,000. To put that into perspective,...
Last night, four Illinois counties had referendums asking voters if they wanted to create a new sales tax. All four referendums were defeated. The 2007 Illinois County School Facility Tax Act allows a referendum to go on the ballot once a school board representing 51 percent of a county’s population approves the measure. Recently, the...
In 2011, Illinois increased its state income tax rate by 67 percent. This tax increase, the largest in state history, cost the average family about $1,500 in additional taxes. Across school districts, municipalities and other local levels of government, taxpayers have faced myriad other tax increases – from gas and sales taxes to congestion fees and...
For most Illinoisans, paid sick days count on a use it or lose it basis. But that
FY2013 budget includes cigarette tax hike, guns and ammo taxes and more taxes on businesses
On Thursday, the Teachers’ Retirement System announced its annual investment returns for fiscal year 2012. You may recall that it was predicting 8.5 percent returns. So what kind of returns did it actually get? A meager 0.76 percent. For comparison, the S&P 500 grew7.39 percent during fiscal year 2012, while the Dow Jones Industrial average grew 7.92 percent and...
Since 2002, cigarette taxes increased 105 times across the country. Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle wants to make it 106. To help fill Cook County’s $267.5 million budget shortfall, Preckwinkle has proposed increasing the per-pack tax on cigarettes by $1. The tax hike is only expected to bring in about $25 million in new revenue. Preckwinkle’s new money...
Cook County faces a projected $267.5 million budget shortfall for fiscal year 2013. Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle has a solution: Fill the gap with higher taxes on cigarettes, guns, ammo, gambling and businesses. “We have structural problems that demand structural solutions” Preckwinkle said. The problems are structural, but Preckwinkle’s solutions are not. Tinkering with the tax...
The Tax Foundation has reaffirmed Illinois’ status as a high-tax state in its newly released 2012 Annual State-Local Tax Burden Ranking. Based on the Census Bureau’s 2010 data, the report found that Illinois’ overall tax burden per resident is the 11th highest in the nation. Some highlights from the report include: At 10.2 percent, Illinois has...
Instead of telling voters that this amendment doesn't solve the problem, some opponents are making arguments that only serve to provide political cover to lawmakers who falsely claim they're fixing the pension crisis with Amendment 49.
Gov. Quinn is not getting great press these days. The Cato Institute recently ranked him the worst governor in the nation. His approval rating stands at just 26 percent. And while Gov. Quinn may choose to ignore those messages, he may want to heed the warnings the financial markets continue to fire his way. Credit agencies have...
Household incomes have plunged by 8.2% across the nation since President Obama took office. In the President’s old stomping grounds, median household income dropped by 2.6% just between 2010 and 2011. And now Gov. Quinn is working to take even more from families in Illinois through higher taxes. But there’s no room left in the family budget for another...