Education Matters US

Read the text of HB750 by searching for it at Illinois Government Site. This is the bill supported by many that is aimed at bringing equitable funding to our schools. What it does is increase the individual income tax rate from 3% to 5% and the corporate tax rate from 4.8% to 8%. This includes some retirement income as well. The state will then show an abatement on our property tax bills of 20% of the school districts tax on each bill. So, you still see the full amount the ddistirct gets and the state gets to look good by saying they are paying that 20% for you. This is supposed to allow the state to fund 51% of district’s education costs.

Now, what happens in a few years when the state decides they can’t afford the abatement and starts to reduce it or remove it altogether. Then you are paying both taxes. Also, how many jobs will raising the corporate tax rate cause? Illinois already has a gap in job creation from the rest of the nation due to all the fees the State has imposed. See some of these fees listed at Cross Blogging and a chart showing the job gap at Extreme Wisdom. More analysis of HB570 is at the Illinois Leader.
This bill is projected to bring $7.1 Billion into the state coffers. Yet, if you read the bill, it says it will provide $2.4 billion in property tax relief and a few other things. This still leaves the state a surplus of just over $3 Billion. This is a bad bill for the taxpayer. The state is just trying to hide their fiscal irresponsibility behind the education of our kids. This is wrong and we need to stop this bill.