Illinois Democrats raise income tax 67%, business taxes 46% to protect union pensions, benefits

Illinois, a kleptocracy in action
What should America do about its troubled economy? Sometimes the real world provides the best laboratory for political and economic experiments. Democratic Capitalism vs. totalitarian Communism? One quick look at East Germany and West Germany in the 1980s or North Korea and South Korea today provides easy analysis of which is the preferable way to create and organize a peaceful and prosperous society. Now we have Illinois vs. Indiana. The Prairie State has the worst Debt rating of any state in ...

Illinois tax hike would bite more than California's
Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn on Thursday signed a package of Tax Increases, including a 67 percent jump in the state's Income Tax rate, that will raise about $7 billion a year and close part of that state's whopping Budget Deficit. Meanwhile, California Gov. Jerry Brown has proposed a package of Tax Increases, Loophole closures and extensions that would raise approximately $11 billion a year and cover about half of the state's projected annual Budget Deficit. So how do the two packages compare? The...

Pat Quinn signs big tax increase
SPRINGFIELD, Ill. • Gov. Pat Quinn signed a major state Income Tax hike Thursday, hoping to address what he called "a fiscal emergency" for the Deficit-ridden state. For many Metro East residents and businesses, though, the emergency begins in April 2012, when they will see their 2011 tax bills rise dramatically. They include Belleville businessman John Bigalke, who says he had set money aside to buy new equipment and hire a second employee at his screenprinting shop, Beatnik's. "Now, I'm ...

Wall Street and our tax hike
* My Sun-Times column… With all the hyperventilating news coverage of the state’s new 2 percentage point income Tax Increase, almost nobody has reported what Gov. Quinn actually said Wednesday when asked why he broke his campaign promise not to raise taxes by more than a single percentage point. “As the last couple months have ensued, it was pretty clear from talking to major entities that lent money to the state of Illinois that the opportunity to borrow was fast eclipsing, and we h...

Temporary tax cuts that go on forever
Under the cover of darkness in the wee hours of Wednesday morning the Lame Duck Illinois House and Senate have given the people of the State of Illinois a sixty-six percent Tax Increase; conducting the vote at just after 1 AM, less than eleven hours before the newly elected Illinois legislature is sworn in.  Thankfully, this bill is only 75 or so pages unlike the two thousand plus page bills produced in Washington D. C., so I wonder if any of our State Legislators are acting like Congress a...

Cullerton: Lower new corporate tax rate by closing loopholes
* Senate President John Cullerton told Fox Chicago this week that he’d be willing to lower the new, higher corporate Income Tax rate rate by closing some tax Loopholes… Cullerton said if he can replace the revenue some other way, he would be willing to move immediately to cut the new Income Tax rate on business, presumably to a level even with Indiana’s 8.5 percent or even lower. Cullerton said if certain tax “loopholes” were closed, the overall rate could be redu...

WaPo says tax cuts holding Obama back from tax overhaul, deficit reduction
Tax Cuts?  What tax cuts?  The only taxes that got reduced in the lame-duck session’s agreement were Social Security taxes in a one-year “holiday,” and the ability of businesses to write off 100% of their capital investments in 2011, considered to be a boost to infrastructure spending.  The Tax Rates stayed exactly as they have been for the last seven years, a point which apparently eluded the Washington Post’s headline writer, while Lori Montgomery reported it a lit

Illinois tax laws could be California's future
Like a chapter out of the ObamaCare saga, Illinois voters will now reap what they have sown.  Democratic Governor Pat Quinn was recently elected to serve a full term after replacing the disgraced Rod Blagojevich in 2009.  His bitterly fought victory came by the narrowest of margins in a highly blue state. During the Lame Duck period between his interim status as governor and his first full term, the State Legislature voted into law a 67 percent personal Tax Increase and a 46 percent bu...

Illinois increases income taxes by 66%
In order to deal with a $15 billion Budget shortfall, lawmakers in Illinois yesterday passed a stunning 66% increase in the state’s Income Tax: Democrats in the Illinois Legislature on Wednesday approved a 66 percent income-tax increase in a desperate and politically risky effort to end the state’s crippling Budget Crisis. The increase now goes to Democratic Gov. Pat Quinn, who supports the plan to temporarily raise the personal Tax Rate to 5 percent, a two-thirds increase from the c...

Big U.S. companies take tax gripes to Geithner
By Kim Dixon WASHINGTON | Fri Jan 14, 2011 1:08pm EST WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Chief financial officers from multinational companies meet with Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner on Friday to air gripes about the tax code under which they pay the steepest rate in the industrialized world. Companies want the rate slashed, arguing that it handicaps them competitively against their foreign-based peers. "The current tax code with its punitive corporate rates and complex maze of deductions and credi...

What Is To Be Done? (Illinois)
Yesterday I proposed potential solutions for the national Unemployment problem. Today I’ll turn my eye to Illinois’s fiscal problem. Here are the reactions of Illinois’s Comptroller and sole Republican holding statewide office, Judy Baar Topinka, to the recent actions of Illinois’s legislature: These echo my reactions and those of Chicago’s Mayor Richard Daley. The Sun-Times responds: Lawmakers last year passed an aggressive two-tier Pension system with less gener...

'Absurd' corporate tax breaks
NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- There's the sweet deal for companies that make Puerto Rican rum. Or the Tax Break intended to promote U.S. Manufacturing but that's so broad it can include the making of hamburgers. The list goes on. Welcome to the American Corporate Tax code, which is front and center for a possible overhaul. Email Print Comment On Friday, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner will meet with business executives to discuss Corporate Tax reform. It is expected to be the first of several meet...

Tax Reform Questions For Treasury Secretary Geithner To Ask of Business Leaders Tomorrow
Lowering Corporate Tax rates to make U.S. multinationals more competitive abroad is one way President Obama may improve his standing with business. Tomorrow, Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner will meet with top business leaders to explore this possibility. President Obama may address the issue in his January 25 State of the Union Address and in his February 7 Speech to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. Here are some questions that I hope Mr. Geithner would ask. 1. How much do you want to lower the top...

Crook County Illinois: Fake State Rep Casts Deciding Vote to Raise Our Taxes
She didn't know anything about the bill. She never read it. She hadn't been given any cheat sheets, facts sheets, talking points, or mass emails on the bill. But in true, corrupt Chicago Fashion, she voted "yes" on it just as she was told to do by her corrupt party bosses. Even worse, she was only a "state rep" because someone told her to drive to the State Capitol for a week to "be" one. As Andy Shaw joked, Williams became the “somebody that somebody sent.”* It is business as usual ...

Illinois economic suicide required reliance on three myths
News of the Illinois General Assembly’s passage of a massive Tax Increase, the largest in the state’s history, has spread across the state and across the nation and the early reviews are not good. Regarding the tax hikes, Governor Chris Christie of New Jersey said, “Let me tell you, you know who the happiest people in the world are?  Governor Branstad of Iowa, Governor Walker of Wisconsin, Governor Daniels of Indiana. People are going to be fleeing and businesses are going...

Wisconsin Moves Quickly to Capitalize on Illinois Tax Hikes
If you live or have a business in the greater Chicago area the Tax Haven of Wisconsin is just a few miles away: Illinois this week earned the honor of becoming the First State in 2011 to sock it to Taxpayers, passing a tax hike the size of Lake Michigan. Citizens cried out, legislators deflected, but the most interesting response came from neighboring Wisconsin, where newly elected GOP Gov. Scott Walker had three words for Illinois businesses: "Escape to Wisconsin." Across the country, dozens o...

Big U.S. companies take tax gripes to Geithner
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Chief financial officers from multinational companies meet with Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner on Friday to air gripes about the tax code under which they pay the steepest rate in the industrialized world. Companies want the rate slashed, arguing that it handicaps them competitively against their foreign-based peers. "The current tax code with its punitive corporate rates and complex maze of deductions and credits highly distorts economic decision-making," said Dean ...

After Their Tax Increase, WI Gov. Begs Illinoisans To Escape To Wisconsin Where Taxes Are Actually Higher
Wisconsin’s new Republican Governor Scott Walker has rushed to make hay out of the Illinois Assembly’s decision to raise individual and Corporate Tax rates, urging Illinois residents and businesses to move to Wisconsin. But, ironically, Illinois residents who move to Wisconsin should bank on paying higher taxes. Conservatives like Walker have insisted on using the figure that Illinois is increasing taxes by a whopping 66 percent. While this is factually accurate, it’s mislea...

Illinois Tax Hike: Governor Quinn Signs Tax Boost Bill Into Law
SPRINGFIELD, Ill. — Gov. Pat Quinn signed Legislation Thursday that temporarily raises Illinois income taxes by two-thirds, risking a political backlash against Democrats but gaining money to help drag State Government out of the deepest Budget hole in its history. The law raises the personal Tax Rate to 5 percent, up from 3 percent. That means someone who previously owed the state $1,000 in taxes will now pay $1,666. The Tax Rate is supposed to drop to 3.75 percent after four years, so ...

Illinois income tax hike will aid recovery, Quinn says
Related: Neighboring states gleeful over Ill. Tax Increase Related: Illinois Gov. Quinn will sign tax hike soon; mum on death penalty Related: Illinois Legislature sends 67 pct. Income Tax hike to Quinn SPRINGFIELD, Ill. • Gov. Pat Quinn forcefully defended on Wednesday the major Income Tax hike he won hours earlier, saying it would put Illinois back on sound fiscal footing and usher in an era of "reform and recovery" to the state's troubled finances. His comments came as a new, more cons...

Illinois business 'bristles' at huge tax increase
Image via Wikipedia Reuters: Illinois companies hit by an extended economic downturn say the state's proposed remedy to its own Financial Crisis -- a beefy Tax Increase -- will deplete investment in local businesses, trigger Job Losses and force companies to leave the state. The Midwestern state is home to some of the biggest and best-known U.S. companies, including three components of the Dow Jones industrial average -- Boeing Co, Caterpillar Inc and McDonald's Corp. An income Tax Increase th...

Illinois Jobs Coming to Michigan?
Earlier this week, on its last day of session, a lame-duck Illinois Legislature passed a 67-percent income Tax Increase, along with large business and Corporate Tax hikes. The measure was approved by just a single vote, and was shrouded in backroom deals and payoffs to constituency groups across the board. The Chicago Tribune’s lead editorial the following day had a short headline: “Goodbye, Jobs.” Governors and other politicians from Missouri, Wisconsin and Indiana are all l...

Illinoisdear tax payer we wasted all your money, now pay up!
Just phenomenal.  The state of Illinois - which spent itself into fiscal oblivion - has decided the way to make up the huge shortfall they’ve run up is to increase taxes for state Taxpayers by 66%: Democrats in the Illinois Legislature on Wednesday approved a 66 percent income-tax increase in a desperate and politically risky effort to end the state’s crippling Budget Crisis. The increase now goes to Democratic Gov. Pat Quinn, who supports the plan to temporarily raise the perso

Illinois income tax to rise 66 percent
SPRINGFIELD, Ill. | Democratic Illinois lawmakers beat a looming deadline and approved a 66 percent income-tax increase in a desperate bid to end the state's crippling Budget Crisis. Legislative leaders rushed early Wednesday to pass the politically risky plan before a new General Assembly was sworn in at noon, taking a slice out of the Democratic majority and removing lame-duck lawmakers willing to support the tax before leaving office. The rate increase might be the biggest any state has adopt...

Chris Christie Hoist a Wee Bit on His Own Petard (Schadenfreude Watch)
As New Jersey Governor Chris Christie found out the hard way, saying bad things about Union Pensions at the wrong times can lead to egg on one’s face and higher costs to Taxpayers. From Bloomberg: New Jersey Governor Chris Christie has learned that talking about state insolvency may have a cost. About 20 minutes after Christie, 48, told a town-hall meeting in Paramus today that health-care costs “will bankrupt” the state, the New Jersey Economic Development Authority cut its tax-exem...