A progressive income tax would hit Illinois’ businesses community hard. That’s because S corporations and most partnerships “pass-through” their income to the individual owners of those businesses, meaning their profits are taxed at the state’s personal income tax rate. That’s on top of the 1.5 percent replacement tax these businesses pay. State Sen. Don Harmon...

One-quarter of the revenue generated by Madigan's surcharge comes directly from small businesses.

House Speaker Mike Madigan has proposed an extra tax on million-dollar incomes. His proposed legislation, HJRCA51, would amend the Illinois Constitution to impose an additional tax of 3 percent on income over $1 million. This tax won’t touch any millionaires who don’t want to pay it. They’ll simply leave, and they are well-equipped to do so. The middle...

Until the mid-1900s, people from across the world stampeded into Illinois in search of opportunity. Workers from rural America came to build Pullman cars, erect skyscrapers and fill factories. Immigrants from Eastern Europe arrived in search of economic freedom. And laborers left the agrarian South to participate in America’s industrialization. Illinois’ population doubled from 1900...

On Nov. 5, Colorado voters defeated a progressive income tax increase by a two-to-one margin — more than 66 percent of the voters said no to higher taxes. Colorado’s Amendment 66 was a ballot initiative to swap out the state’s competitive flat rate income tax for a progressive income tax increase. Specifically, lawmakers wanted to...