Illinois may end up with the highest combined national-local corporate income tax in the industrialized world"

Abandon hope, all ye who enter here

Many people in Illinois are shocked that Governor Pat Quinn and his fellow Democrats in the General Assembly are planning to raise the state income tax 75 percent--from 3 percent to 5.25 percent. Some of them voted for Quinn--those individuals have no one to blame but themselves.

Most of that hike is a temporary increase--after four years, it will drop to 3.75 percent. Or so they say. But even if the "temporary" part of the hike does go away--it's still a tax increase.

Oh, lame duck mischief isn't limited to Washington. The General Assembly is in a lame duck session.

As William Shakespeare may have written in Henry VI: "The first thing we do, let's kill all the ducks."

Meanwhile, Forbes shows that Quinn, the self-proclaimed populist, lied to the 13 million residents of Illinois:

The tax proposal puts Quinn in an awkward position. It would boost the tax rate by 2.25 percentage points, but the governor - while running for re-election - promised last year to veto any increase above 1 percentage point.

Last summer, a Quinn aide suggested taxes might have to be raised by 2 points. Quinn quickly disavowed the comments and said he opposed anything beyond his proposed hike of 1 percentage point.

"I'm going to veto anything that isn't my plan," Quinn said at the time.

Quinn's plan was 1 percent. He lied. Liar, liar, liar. Listen to the audio.

Illinois' corporate tax rate goes up too, according to the plan from 7.3 percent to 10.9 percent, which leads the Tax Foundation to declare that the Land of Lincoln will have "the highest combined national-local corporate income tax in the industrialized world" if Quinn and the Democrats get their way.

We can be number 1!!!

But I don't want to be.

Is there good news regarding this tax increase scheme? Well, if you are the governor of Indiana there is. Republican Governor Mitch Daniels is enthusiastic about what it means for the Hoosier State.

We already had an edge on Illinois in terms of the cost of doing business, and this is going to make it significantly wider.

Oh, did you know that spending still goes up in the Democrats' plan? Just 1 percent--if they are telling the truth. But Illinois doesn't have a revenue problem, it has a spending problem.

Another broken Springfield promise

There is one more piece of good news. Right now, the votes aren't there to pass it. Let's keep it that way.

A $1-a-pack cigarette tax hike is also in Quinn's quiver of sticky fingers. That money is supposed to go to education. Hmm...wasn't money from the state lottery supposed to be directed to the schools when it was proposed almost 40 years ago? Too bad it didn't turn out that way.

The Illinois Policy Institute gives 12 reasons to oppose the tax hike.

Much information for this post comes courtesy of Capitol Fax.

Related posts:

Dems make deal for massive tax hikes in Illinois
Action alert! Amazon.com may boot me--because of an Illinois internet sales tax
Proft, Lang, discuss Quinn's debt bomb
Raising cigarette taxes in Illinois: Still a bad idea

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