Ill. faces 66 percent tax boost amid budget crisis

Ill. faces 66 percent tax boost amid budget crisis

news.yahoo.com

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.

(visit the link for the full news article)

I truly cannot believe what I am reading. A 66% tax increase is simply astounding. Think about that. 66% INCREASE. How can anyone representing the people even imagine such a ludicrous thing, let alone present it and ultimately pass it? How can the average American afford this? Illinois has a 'crippling budget crisis', so the people of that state must pay for the governments bad spending habits? Do politicians understand what the economy has done to the average working American? I know too many people who cannot afford the bills they currently have as a direct result of elected officials actions. This is absolutely deplorable.
Now that this has come to be, what do they have in store for the populace next?

news.yahoo.com
(visit the link for the full news article)

Originally posted by MacuserHow can anyone representing the people even imagine such a ludicrous thing, let alone present it and ultimately pass it?

Democrats retain control of Illinois Legislature

SPRINGFIELD —
Despite a Republican wave in Tuesday's election, Democrats retained control of both houses of the Illinois General Assembly for the fifth straight time.

The state is mired in a budget deficit that could top $15 billion after eight years of Democratic statehouse control. The Legislature in 2009 impeached and removed Gov. Rod Blagojevich, since convicted on a federal corruption charge.

Progressive-liberalism at work is the answer:

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/fa4026992254.jpg[/atsimg]

Mmmmmm, Mmmmm, Mmmmm...Barack Hussain Obamma - drink it in....

Originally posted by Macuser
I truly cannot believe what I am reading. A 66% tax increase is simply astounding. Think about that. 66% INCREASE. How can anyone representing the people even imagine such a ludicrous thing, let alone present it and ultimately pass it?

Taxes suck, no question about that. However, from your tone, I think that you might be misconstruing what the numbers are. The increase is 66%, which does not mean that the tax is 66%.

From your article:

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 current 3 percent rate. Corporate taxes also would climb as part of the effort to close a budget hole that could hit $15 billion this year.

So the current state income tax is three percent, and it is going to five percent. It is not 66 percent.

Personally, I would say that cutting state expenditures to close that $15 billion hole would be a much better idea, but that's probably why I'm not a politician

reply to post by Macuser


So the tax will go from 3% to 5%.... OMG

Way to use a headline to mislead the masses.... A 66% increase!!! OMG

That sounds terrible but it's really just from 3% to 5%

If I could pack up and leave now, I would.

Originally posted by Wildbob77
reply to post by Macuser

 

So the tax will go from 3% to 5%.... OMG

Way to use a headline to mislead the masses.... A 66% increase!!! OMG

That sounds terrible but it's really just from 3% to 5%

Well, depending on what bracket one is in the increase in the state rate from 3 to 5 % could be quite a lot actually becasue it is paid in addition to the federal rate along with any, county, city income taxes if any, sales tax, property tax, use taxes - tolls etc.

Besides, I find truth in the headline - say instead of taxes its gas for your car if it went from 3.00 a gallon to 5.00 that is a 66% increase to cover the increase in the price of oil people would go balistic at the "corperate meanies" for passing on the cost to the consumer (taxpayer in the case of this analogy) instead of taking less in profit for themselves.

"But its only really an increase of 2.00 not 66% don't be sensational - they say so enjoy it - huh?

Same same....

Why do people tolerate such things from the progressive-marxists in the state house?

Why anyone would willingly live in the left coasts states or the blue states is beyond my comprehension.

Highest taxes, worst schools, highest drop out rates, highest crime rates and least personal freedoms - lead on Dems lead on...

Originally posted by adjensen

Originally posted by Macuser
I truly cannot believe what I am reading. A 66% tax increase is simply astounding. Think about that. 66% INCREASE. How can anyone representing the people even imagine such a ludicrous thing, let alone present it and ultimately pass it?

Taxes suck, no question about that. However, from your tone, I think that you might be misconstruing what the numbers are. The increase is 66%, which does not mean that the tax is 66%.

From your article:

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 current 3 percent rate. Corporate taxes also would climb as part of the effort to close a budget hole that could hit $15 billion this year.

So the current state income tax is three percent, and it is going to five percent. It is not 66 percent.

Personally, I would say that cutting state expenditures to close that $15 billion hole would be a much better idea, but that's probably why I'm not a politician

A pleasure to make your aquaintance adjensen. It's cool you challenged me on it, I like that. It keeps me on my toes!
Take a quick glance at my opening remarks. I am aware that it is a 66% INCREASE. While going from 3% to 5% doesn't seem so significant when you say it simply as going from 3 to 5, but it is a an increase of 66%.
Just a very quick calculation. I'll use a round number for ease of use. Let's say that over the course of a year you spend $10,000.00 on items which are taxable. I was paying $300.00 at 3% Now, for the EXACT same grocery list I will be paying $500.00 at 5%. That is $200.00 more being paid that before.
Now that doesn't sound like alot, but it is. Buying a car almost always has to have tax and tags. You buy a $20,000.00 car, that is $400.00 more than it was last year. That adds up very quickly.
I'd be curious to see if any elecred State Official gets a raise in the near future.

LOL. I actually posted on this 2 or 3 days ago. It does appear that they scaled back some though. Originally the proposal was for a 75% increase.
www.abovetopsecret.com...

Originally posted by Macuser
A pleasure to make your aquaintance adjensen. It's cool you challenged me on it, I like that. It keeps me on my toes!
Take a quick glance at my opening remarks. I am aware that it is a 66% INCREASE. While going from 3% to 5% doesn't seem so significant when you say it simply as going from 3 to 5, but it is a an increase of 66%.

I'm not disputing that, nor am I saying that I'm in favour of it (I live in a state with minuscule individual taxes, a large budget surplus, and elected officials and fellow citizens who want to keep it that way.) It just seemed from the tone of your post that you might have confused an increase OF 66% with an increase TO 66%.

I'm glad that you did not, and we have further clarification for people who might come into the thread and come to the wrong conclusion.

(And nice to meet someone named "Macuser" -- I've been a Mac OS programmer since 1985 )

Must be a joke or something, anytime an article claims something unthinkable, and hads a dab of policital affiliations, its just bad propaganda by the other side lol, darn them democrats are evil, last article was the rep who where evil lol, i aint american and i can smell bull# like the next guy lol.


eheheh only 2% raise ehhehe , nice post op, and nice way tweek the story eheheheheh

reply to post by dukeofjive

How do you get a 2% raise? Can you not handle the mathematics of the situation? 3 is what percentage of 5? To make it easier for you, I will double both and ask 6 is what percentage of 10? Still too difficult? Let's add a zero to each then. 60 is what percentage of 100? If the answer does not jump right out at you, might I suggest a review of 3rd grade mathematics?

The OP didnt tweak, or mislead with the headline at all.

It was a 66% increase in the income tax rate.

Mike Madigan is the butthole that is responsible for this, and deserves all of the blame.

For the life of me, I cant understand why anyone would willingly chose to live in Illinois anymore.

The award for most corrupt and inefficient state government goes to IL, and there is no sign of them ever wanting to do anything to change that.

reply to post by GeneralAwesome

The award for most corrupt and inefficient state government goes to IL, and there is no sign of them ever wanting to do anything to change that.

Really? They really beat out California? I can understand beating the District of Criminals since that is not an actual state, but beating Socialist Republic of California? I find that hard to believe.

reply to post by sonofliberty1776


Illinois is a laughing stock. The democrat speaker of the house, Mike Madigan, actually runs the sate, not the governor. The guy is 100% corrupt, yet keeps getting re-elected. Illinois is basically a mini police state, and I find it absolutely astounding that people actually continue to live there.

Originally posted by sonofliberty1776
reply to post by dukeofjive

 

How do you get a 2% raise? Can you not handle the mathematics of the situation?

It's not mathematics, it's semantics.

Both of these statements are true:

The tax rate increased two percent.
The tax rate increased by 66 percent.

If one wishes to downplay the increase, they will describe it in the first way (also, they'll refer to it as a "revenue enhancement", not a tax increase ) If one wishes to make it seem worse than it is, they will describe it the second way.

People who are not paying attention (or who aren't well versed in maths) may see the second as "The tax rate increased TO 66 percent".

Welcome to politics in America, where the truth of the matter is irrelevant -- it's all about the spin.

I live in Illinois near Chicago. Red-Light cameras everywhere ( in the city the red light cameras come with a traffic light that has a shorter yellow light than normal. Its about 2 seconds shorter on a timer specifically set up to catch red light runners with a $120 fine.

With the recent income tax hike, I'm outta here. Will be moving either in the next 6 months or by the end of the year. Th Gov in Illinois is a bunch of corrupt crooks. So we have to pay because of their incompetent spending?

Lol .....what a freakin joke. I'm going to talk to some folks about starting a "Move out of state" movement!

In thinking this through, I don't know if the following was intentional, but if it was, very clever on someone's part.

There is something interesting about this 2 percent increase... the 2011 Federal Tax Relief Act also has the number two percent in it. Your Social Security tax is going down by 2 percent this year, from 6.2 to 4.2%

So, for someone in Illinois, the net effect on their paycheck will be zero. If their take home pay on 31 Dec 2010 was $1,000 then their take home page on 15 January 2011 will also be $1,000 (give or take other minor changes.) Now, we know that most people are pretty oblivious of things like payroll taxes -- even though it's usually spelled out on their check stub, unless some big change happens to their take home pay, they're not going to notice a thing.

But the Social Security reduction stops at the end of the year, so their first check in 2012 will see that two percent reduction. And then they're going to notice it, ask around, and what will they hear?

"The Federal government increased Social Security taxes by two percent" and then they will rail at those jerks in Washington, never realizing that the REAL increase was this two percent that Illinois put in place today.

Like I said, maybe not intentional, but very clever, if it was.

I live in Arkansas and the taxes are still higher here than in Illinois. We pay a 7% tax, so I really don't see why this is that big of a deal. At least they aren't having to pay any higher than that. Just my opinion.