In exchange for more than $112 million in tax breaks, Amazon promised to expand its Illinois operations and hire 7,200 new employees in Aurora, Monee and Joliet.
The car manufacturer is promising to bring more than 1,000 jobs to Normal, Ill., after being offered $49.5 million in state tax credits and more in local tax credits and abatements.
The expiration of the state’s EDGE program – which has given large companies more than $1 billion in tax credits the last 15 years – is good news for taxpayers and should encourage lawmakers to pass real reforms.
Taxpayers will shell out $36 million for Soldier Field in 2016, in addition to footing the bill for U.S. Cellular Field. And the city of Chicago is still pushing a plan for DePaul University that would cost an initial $55 million for a new basketball stadium.
Flawed property valuations and the process required to fix them are a cash cow for law firms, including those of House Speaker Mike Madigan, Chicago Alderman Ed Burke and Illinois Senate President John Cullerton.
It’s perfectly legal for people working for local government to engage in politics on their own free time, but if they are using taxpayer resources or facilities for political campaigns it can be a criminal act. A Freedom of Information Act investigation conducted by the Illinois Policy Institute has revealed potentially illegal activities being conducted...
At least 84 corruption-related stories have been reported from across the state of Illinois in August alone. Atop August headlines is the recent revelation that a federal grand jury subpoenaed the emails of Gov. Pat Quinn’s ex-chief of staff in relation to Quinn’s anti-violence grant program. The case, which has been referred to by some...
Illinois government does some strange things. A case in point is how the state treats people and businesses that create jobs. Illinoisans are subject to both a death tax and a franchise tax. The death tax is a special tax on wealthy people just for the privilege of dying in the state of Illinois. This...
Chicago’s $1.15 billion projected budget gap is the latest in a decades-long string of structural deficits. Making Chicago’s high taxes worse is not the solution.