No more corporate sweetheart deals
More than 20 years after receiving some $247 million in state and local tax incentives to stay in Illinois and develop a new business campus in Hoffman Estates, Sears wants another 15 years of reduced taxes or they will take their jobs and leave.
Why didn’t the authors of such a sweetheart deal include a provision to require repayment of tax credits if Sears left within 10 or 15 years after the expiration of the agreement?
The state and Hoffman Estates are right to want to retain a large corporation, but they are wrong to cave in to corporate blackmail. And no deal should be considered unless some way can be found to recognize and mitigate the potential loss of some $200 million in property taxes to cash-strapped Community Unit District 300.
Illinois’ “Let’s Make a Deal” culture of backroom deals only fosters taxpayer distrust and discontent. Special deals for corporations with clout only increase the odds that other companies will want a deal, too. And if they get a deal, the tax burden is shifted to you and me and the rest of the unclouted 99 percent.
Instead of paying ransom to the few to retain jobs, our elected officials should be working to improve the overall business climate and the economic health of Illinois for everyone.
As District 300 taxpayers, we should demand that, if Illinois won’t live up to its constitutional requirement to fund public education, then it should at least not stand in the way of collecting duly levied property taxes, which is our only other option for funding the schools.
Unless we are treated fairly, I will not vote for anyone who approves an extension of the EDA, and I will not spend another dollar at Sears or in Hoffman Estates.
Evelyn Carol Grom
Sleepy Hollow