Chicago\u2019s chief financial officer on Tuesday branded Illinois\u2019 regressive tax structure as \u201cthe crime of the century\u201d that can only be solved through a graduated income tax and extending the state sales tax to professional services.<\/p>\n
CFO Jill Jaworski took aim at a tax structure that requires people earning $25,000 or less to shell out 19.4% of their annual income in state and local taxes, or roughly $4,800. The total tax burden for those earning more than $250,000 is just 11.5% in taxes.<\/p>\n
The overall tax burden should be greater for higher-income earners, Jaworski said during an appearance at the City Club of Chicago. But in Illinois, the tax structure is \u201cbackwards,\u201d which \u201cmakes no sense at all,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re not able to put in any kind of graduated taxes. We\u2019re not able to put new taxes on personal income, corporate income. All the kinds of things that could lessen the regressivity. Our … sales taxes are on goods \u2014 not services,\u201d Jaworski said. <\/p>\n
In the 36 years that she has lived in Illinois, Jaworski said the state has swung from a politically moderate state with a moderate Republican as governor to a \u201cmore liberal, progressive state\u201d that has become strongly Democratic.<\/p>\n
But the tax structure \u201cdoes not reflect moderate or progressive values,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe need to make changes to fix this. We can do much, much better. We have to as a group \u2014 government leaders, civic leaders, business leaders community leaders \u2014 we have to work with \u2026 our state Legislature to make changes so we don\u2019t have this kind of situation because this is, to me, the crime of the century right here,\u201d Jaworski said.<\/p>\n
For decades, Chicago mayors and their finance teams have been lobbying the Illinois General Assembly to broaden the sales tax umbrella to professional services.<\/p>\n
The idea has gone nowhere in Springfield \u2014 even though it has a potential annual yield of $305 million for the city alone.<\/p>\n
But that legislative losing streak didn\u2019t stop Jaworski from making a renewed pitch to a luncheon crowd filled with powerful movers and shakers. She said the biggest reason Chicago has such a high sales tax rate is because the sales tax base is so narrow and does not include professional services.<\/p>\n
During the 1950s, 70% of consumer spending was on goods. Now, it\u2019s down to 50% on goods and the other half on services, she said. And that\u2019s not including health care and housing services.<\/p>\n
\u201cI have a gym membership. I get a massage every month. I get my nails done. I get my hair done. I consume a lot of services. … I\u2019m going to pay an interior decorator to help me with a couple of rooms in my house I want to redo. I pay no taxes on any of that,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cLike most people sitting in this room, I can afford to pay taxes on the activities that I engage in that are, frankly, luxury activities. And I should be paying taxes on them. I should be paying a higher percentage of my income on the \u2026 activities that I enjoy. They are a major part of our economy. … Whereas somebody who is living paycheck-to-paycheck is paying taxes on most everything they do. That is regressive, and it\u2019s unfair.\u201d<\/p>\n
On the other end of the tax spectrum is the 1% sales tax on groceries that the state eliminated. If the City Council doesn\u2019t renew it by Oct. 1, the city will go $80 million deeper in the hole.<\/p>\n
Jaworski acknowledged that the tax \u201cstirs a lot of feelings in people\u201d \u2014 and puts City Council members in an \u201cuncomfortable position\u201d \u2014 at a time when grocery prices are rising. <\/p>\n
But she stressed that the average Chicagoan will pay just $60 more a year if the tax is reinstated, and that the 1% levy does not apply to Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program recipients.<\/p>\n
Gov. JB Pritzker tried to switch to a graduated income tax, but his binding referendum in 2020 was defeated after a big-bucks battle with billionaire businessman Ken Griffin.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Chicago\u2019s chief financial officer on Tuesday branded Illinois\u2019 regressive tax structure as \u201cthe crime of the century\u201d that…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":140858,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5124],"tags":[960,5386,1818],"class_list":{"0":"post-140857","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-chicago","8":"tag-chicago","9":"tag-il","10":"tag-illinois"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115018310827649850","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/140857","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=140857"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/140857\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/140858"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=140857"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=140857"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=140857"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}