IEA holds training sessions to increase taxes … on teachers?

The Illinois Education Association, or IEA, is training its members to advocate for a plan that, ironically, increases taxes on teachers.

The Illinois Education Association, or IEA, is training its members to advocate for a plan that, ironically, increases taxes on teachers.

IEA’s ranks include more than 130,000 members across the state. Training sessions for these IEA members are part of a larger movement to implement a progressive income tax in Illinois – a tax plan that would cause Illinois teachers to fork over even more of their income to the state.

The progressive tax plan being pushed by the IEA travels under many names: the graduated income tax, a modern tax system, a more fair tax or a tax on the rich.

Under each of its names, the progressive income tax is being falsely pitched as a tax on just the rich – to make Illinois’ super-wealthy pay their “fair share.” In reality, the current plan designed by the Center for Tax and Budget Accountability, or CTBA, would hike the tax rate on everyone making more than $5,000 – some 85 percent of taxpayers in Illinois. That’s because the CTBA plan makes permanent the temporary 2011 income tax hike and then taxes income earned after $5,000 at seven ever-higher marginal tax rates, topping off at 11 percent.

In fact, two married teachers in Illinois each making the state’s average teacher salary of $66,614 would earn enough money to kick part of their income into the 7.5 percent bracket – up from the 3.75 percent income tax rate they’re scheduled to pay in 2015. Without kids and after taking the standard personal exemptions, that couple would pay about $2,000 more in state income taxes under the CTBA plan.

In some areas of the state it’s even worse. Two married teachers working at Lake Forest CHSD 115 each earning the district average of $107,172 would make enough to push some of their earnings into the 7.5, 8.5 and 9.5 percent income tax brackets.

Even in areas where teachers earn a salary far less than state average, such as the $55,185 average salary in Champaign CUSD 4, a married couple of teachers would make enough to push part of their income into the 7.5 percent bracket.

GR update March 1, 2013 from IEANEA on Vimeo.

At the end of the day, maybe it’s not that hard to understand why the IEA is pushing for another tax hike – considering that the new revenue would likely be used to shore up the state’s broken pension system at the expense of everyone else.

But teachers in Illinois have the right to know what a progressive income tax would mean for them.  It’s not just a tax increase on the super-wealthy. It’s a tax increase on teachers.