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Tax Foundation: Illinois Considers an 11.25 Percent Tax on Small Businesses
Small businesses in Illinois could soon face state income taxes as high as 11.25 percent, one of the highest rates on small businesses anywhere in the nation, and significantly above the rate the state imposes on traditional C corporations.
Under legislation sponsored by House Deputy Majority Leader Lou Lang (D), the Illinois individual income tax, currently levied at a flat rate of 3.75 percent, would be converted into a graduated rate tax with a top rate of 9.75 percent. Because pass-through businesses fall under the individual, and not the corporate, income tax schedule, and because they must also pay a 1.5 percent “personal property replacement tax”—in fact, a second income tax—their new top marginal income tax rate would be 11.25 percent.
By way of comparison, four of Illinois’ six neighboring states impose top marginal rates of 6 percent or less on small businesses, and a fifth (Iowa) adopts a deduction for federal taxes paid which dramatically reduces individual income tax liability. Additionally, traditional C corporations in Illinois would continue to face a 7.75 percent corporate income tax rate, meaning that many of the state’s small businesses would face substantially higher income tax rates than their much larger corporate competitors.
Sun-Times: Illinois yanking string of manufacturers doing R&D
Illinois’ state symbol for manufacturing research could be a yo-yo.
Businesses in Illinois beg for stability and predictability in matters of government regulation and taxation, but the state’s tax credit for manufacturing research and development has spooled up and down for 13 years. And it is stuck in the wrong place again, like a yo-yo with a knot, due to the absurd inability of the Illinois General Assembly and governor to draw up a basic state budget.
Chicago Tribune: Illinois' hiring protections 'minimal' for those with criminal records
Nearly 20 years ago, LaTonya Anderson got into a scuffle with police. She pleaded guilty to aggravated assault on two police officers and was granted probation and community service, a deal she said she took so she could quickly get home to her newborn son.
Now 40, Anderson, a resident of Chicago’s Kenwood neighborhood, has worked for 15 years as a certified nursing assistant and is eager to become a licensed practical nurse, which pays twice the hourly wage — but state law won’t allow her to obtain the necessary license because of her felony conviction.
“It hurts, it hurts deeply,” Anderson said tearfully as she described the 18 months she spent in nursing school and the state boards she took twice before she passed, only to receive a letter saying she had a lifetime ban on obtaining a health care license.
WICS: Lawmakers Renew Call For Powdered Caffeine Ban
Senator Dick Durbin is renewing his call for the FDA to ban the sale of powdered caffeine.
Durbin and other senators held a press conference where they released new data from the poison control centers showing that even small doses of powdered caffeine can be deadly.
According the FDA, a teaspoon of pure caffeine can be equivalent to 25 cups of coffee.
AP: Illinois professor to lead review of state's inmate programs
A professor at Southern Illinois University has been recruited by the Illinois Department of Corrections to review the effectiveness of every offender program aimed at reducing recidivism.
A team led by criminology professor Daryl Kroner will evaluate which programs are effective and which fall short, Illinois Department of Corrections spokeswoman Nicole Wilson told the (Carbondale) Southern Illinoisan (http://bit.ly/1rkd5q7 ). The department will then “make a determination” on how to deal with the ineffective programs.
The team, which includes graduate students assisting with the collection of data and other information, has already catalogued the system’s services and programs. Its next step is to evaluate about 200 programs that work with offenders either through state prisons or in the community.
Chicago Mag: State Law Protects Police Contract Provisions Blasted by Task Force
While Chicago’s police union contracts have faced scrutiny in the aftermath of the Laquan McDonald shooting, culminating in the scathing 190-page report released by the Police Accountability Task Force this month, critics have so far skirted a potentially more challenging roadblock: a state law that mirrors parts of the contracts and bears the police union’s fingerprints.
Back in the early 1980s, shortly after the Fraternal Order of Police became the sole bargaining unit for rank-and-file Chicago cops, the union helped craft and lobbied for the Uniform Peace Officers’ Disciplinary Act. The bill influences how civilians file complaints against police, how misconduct investigations are conducted, and how interrogators question cops.
In 1983, Illinois Rep. Roger McAuliffe, a former Chicago police officer whose district included much of Chicago’s Northwest side and nearby suburbs, argued on behalf of the law, saying it was needed to take officers “out of the class of being second- and third-class citizens and makes them equal to the people they’re arresting.” According to transcriptions, the now-deceased Republican lawmaker said, “Criminals have much more rights than police officers currently have when they’re faced with disciplinary action by their superiors.”
Chicago Tribune: Medical pot could come to Loop under clout-heavy change
Medical marijuana dispensaries would be allowed in the Loop under a change to Chicago zoning regulations pitched by Ald. Ed Burke and a campaign contributor he once helped to nearly double his state pension through a one-month sweetheart deal.
Former-state-lawmaker-turned-lobbyist Robert Molaro told the City Council Zoning Committee on Tuesday about the roadblock that pot dispensaries now face: They’re technically allowed in some Loop areas, but the potential sites are within 1,000 feet of a school or day-care facility, and that rules them out under state law.
Tweaking the zoning classifications would open up some downtown locations to dispensaries, provided the would-be owners managed to get a special-use permit from the Zoning Board of Appeals, Molaro told aldermen. Securing such a permit requires a public hearing, and nearby residents and property owners can weigh in.