Tax Foundation

How to Empty Fat Wallets

09/29/2010
by Kristina Rasmussen Earlier today I testified at a House Revenue committee hearing on the matter of online taxation. Up for consideration was SB 3353, and more broadly, the hearing served as a review of attempts to use online affiliates of Internet retailers to establish physical nexus for taxation purposes. So what’s at stake? Some want to impose so-called...

U.S. corporate tax rate pushes jobs overseas

09/27/2010
by Ashley Muchow Our current administration has another plan to bring jobs back the U.S.  Though the end goal is merited, the plan of action is grounded in poor economic reasoning. President Obama claimed last week that “for years, our tax code has actually given billions of dollars in tax breaks that encourage companies to...

Spotlight on Spending #13: ‪Illinois Film Tax Credit Program‬

By Chris Andriesen
09/22/2010
The Problem Witnessing explosions from the latest Transformers movie on Michigan Avenue and catching glimpses of movie stars like Johnny Depp and Angelina Jolie may provide an exciting novelty for Illinois residents. But is it worth the price? Illinois state government offers film production projects generous tax incentives to film within its borders, but the...

Commit, Speaker Pelosi

09/16/2010
by Kristina Rasmussen A report from the nonpartisan Tax Foundation found that the sunset of the Bush tax cuts at the end of 2010 would cost the average middle-income Illinois family earning $68,958 some $1,640 in higher taxes in 2011. Check out our handy table to see how much your family could pay in higher federal and/or state...

Charting the Illinois Exodus

09/16/2010
by Ashley Muchow Check it out!  The Tax Foundation released a nifty interactive tool showing state-to-state migration data for a range of years between 1993 and 2008. The tool tracks the flow of both people and their income based on IRS tax return data. You can select any state and track the net inflows and outflows to and from...

Illinois’s State Sales Tax Holiday

08/11/2010
by Ashley Muchow Another great cartoon from Scott Stantis of the Chicago Tribune. Illinois’s State Sales Tax Holiday commenced August 6th and is set to last until August 15th.  See our blog on the tax holiday and a bit more from the Tax Foundation on the political gimmick.

Buddy, Can You Spare $2,240?

08/03/2010
by Kristina Rasmussen As Illinois families dive into back-to-school shopping, smart moms and dads will account for how looming tax hikes will affect their household spending. A combination of the soon-to-expire Bush tax cuts and Illinois Governor Pat Quinn’s income tax hike plan would take a painful chunk out of the already-stretched family budget. A new report...

$10K per Taxpayer

By Chris Andriesen
06/25/2010
That is about how much it would cost to close the US budget deficit for 2010. Using data from the Tax Foundation, Veronique de Rugy of the Mercatus Center has created a chart which shows the average increase in tax burden per taxpayer required to balance the annual federal budget.  The cost to close the...

Jumping on the Moving Truck

By Chris Andriesen
06/16/2010
An interactive migration map from Forbes helps us understand Illinois's population migration.

2.1 Million, 34% of Tax Filers in Illinois Pay No Federal Income Tax

05/28/2010
by Brian Costin An interesting study from the Tax Foundation released earlier this week showed that 34% of Illinois citizens who filed a tax return paid no taxes on their income, slightly below the national average of 36%. 2.1 Million out of the state’s 6.1 million filers were able to reduce their income tax liability to...