Small businesses face a potential income tax hike nearly 5 times larger than corporations under Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s “fair tax” amendment.

Illinois’ taxes and fees on gasoline keep the pump price high, even when oil producers are paying for someone to take excess crude. The state gas tax is set to rise again in July.

Two decades of fiscal mismanagement have left state finances ill-prepared for the COVID-19 pandemic. Congress should condition any additional aid for troubled states on taxpayer protections that ensure pensions are solvent, accounting is realistic and budgets are balanced.

State lawmakers in 2019 passed a progressive income tax amendment at the behest of Gov. J.B. Pritzker. Now that coronavirus has ravaged the state’s small business community, they should withdraw the amendment.

The years 2010 through 2019 will go down in Illinois history as a decade of public policy failure and economic decline. High fixed costs for pensions and government worker health care have prevented the state from balancing its budget in any year since 2001. Since the Great Recession in 2008, the state’s fiscal imbalance has...

A progressive income tax would force nearly all joint filers in Illinois to pay higher income taxes than they would as single filers. Meanwhile, some wealthy couples would save thousands in state income taxes.

Illinois can do it the old way and raise taxes to deliver pork projects. Or Illinois can be smart and make each tax dollar work hard to deliver projects that help residents and the economy.

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.

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

It is time to give taxpayers and businesses the certainty they need to plan a long-term future in the state.