Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker's inconsistent progressive income tax numbers don't add up, which means he will have to pass middle-class tax hikes to raise what he wants to spend.

The governor’s office issued a concerning response to a simple request for the numbers backing up his “fair tax” proposal.

Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s proposed progressive income tax won’t raise the revenue he claims, and will lead to future tax hikes on the middle class.

An amendment to scrap Illinois’ constitutional flat tax protection is gaining sponsors in the Illinois Senate. Lawmakers have refused to discuss rates since those details killed the last progressive tax attempt.

While J.B. Pritzker has not released a detailed tax plan of his own, reasonable cost estimates suggest the tax hike required to pay for the candidate’s spending promises would require doubling Illinois’ state income tax rate and cost the state an estimated 132,000 jobs and $31.3 billion in forgone GDP.

As a result of the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in South Dakota v. Wayfair Inc., most online purchases in Illinois will now be subject to automatic collection of the state’s 6.25 percent use tax.

That’s why they call them taxes. If they were easy, they’d call them something else.

Illinois should take steps toward more accurate and frequent property assessments to ensure the tax burden is distributed as fairly as possible.

State lawmakers should reform Illinois’ overly complicated sales taxes and other anti-business taxes, which violate guiding principles of sound tax policy.