In Illinois - Beware "Tax Tigers" and "Trojan Horses!"

Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker wants to replace Illinois's flat-rate income tax with a "graduated income tax."


Here are his proposed tax brackets on every dollar earned:


-- Up to $10,000, 4.75 percent



-- $10,001 to $100,000, 4.9 percent


-- $100,001 to $250,000, 4.95 percent


-- $250,001 to $500,000, 7.75 percent


-- $500,001 to $1 million, 7.85 percent


-- $1 million-plus, 7.95 percent.


So what would the savings be to the taxpayer who earns exactly $10,000? $20! What would the savings be to the taxpayer who earns exactly $100,000? A tad less than $50. (The first $10,000 would be taxed at 4.75 percent.)

Those paying the tax up to $250,000 would also see their taxes decrease exactly the same as those paying taxes on $100,000.


Since I believe I should not be able to vote to raise your taxes, unless I at the same time vote to raise my own taxes by the same percentage, I oppose any graduated income tax and strongly support keeping the Illinois flat-rate income tax.


A quick look at the graduated federal income tax makes clear the reason for my concern. Approximately 76.4 million, or 44.4 percent of Americans will pay no federal income tax in 2018. Yet that 44.4 percent can vote to raise their neighbor's federal income tax, while at the same time exempting themselves.

Illinois now has a Democratic governor. Democrats outnumber Republicans in the Illinois Senate 40-19, and 74-44 in the Illinois House. If Democrats stick together, Republicans can't stop Democrats from recommending a Constitutional amendment to Illinois voters to replace the current flat-rate tax, with a graduated income tax.

If 60 percent of both Senate and House members vote to put the issue before the voters, it will be on the ballot in the 2020 Election. All it will take is 36 of 40 Democrats in the Senate, and 71 of 74 Democrats in the House. (I give Republicans a pass as an Illinois "endangered species!")

Once the Legislature is given power to enact a graduated state income tax, all of Pritzker's promises -- his proposed rates -- mean absolutely nothing. The following, day, the General Assembly will have unfettered power to enact a truly progressive graduated income tax with whatever rates it pleases.


If you want to see how the old shell game is played, just stand back and watch. You'll get a lesson from professionals in the art of bait and switch.


Our Democratic Legislature will have power, for example, to exempt the first $50,000 of income from the new Illinois income tax while, at the same time, taxing incomes over $50,000 at 10 percent, incomes over $100,000 at 20 percent, and incomes over $1 million at any rate it chooses (to the extent it is not already taxed by the feds). The Democrats will be able to create a whole new class of voters who pay no tax, but have power to vote to tax their neighbors without taxing themselves.


How long will it take for millionaires who object to paying higher taxes to move to Florida and other states without income taxes? Why would any millionaire in his right mind pay a 10 percent, 20 percent or 33 percent tax in Illinois when he escapes the tax altogether by leaving Illinois?


And do you really trust our Democratic Legislature to retrench? To use the new tax revenues to pay off Illinois debts? To shore up our foundering pension system? Or will this be a blank check for "progressives" to plunge headlong into implementing an Illinois version of the Green New Deal?


When the federal income tax was enacted in 1913, the lowest tax rate was 1 percent; the highest, 7 percent. Then, once the Trojan Horse was within the walls, things changed.

By 1918, a 77 percent tax was imposed on incomes over $1 million to finance WWI. (When young men are shedding their blood to save the country, fairness requires the rich to shed their income to save the country.)


Today every Progressive Democrat has his own soak-the-rich proposal. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., is calling for a 70 percent rate on incomes in excess of $10 million. Not content with taxing incomes, Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., wants to tax "wealth."


You cannot escape paying federal income tax by moving from Illinois to Florida, but you can escape Illinois income taxes by moving. And once the rich flee, who do you think will be left to pay?


Dining with tigers is dangerous!


Posted: QCOline.com   April 4, 2019

Copyright 2019, John Donald O'Shea