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Other ways to tell the tax-hike story

Pritzker's income tax solution seems to be all marketing. Lowering the tax on 95% of Illinois residents ... who wouldn't vote for that? However, what if the story was Pritzker's plan to raise $3 billion in income tax (currently $13 billion and proposed increase to $16 billion) is based on ... the top 57,000 of 5.5 million income tax payers in Illinois pay $3 billion and Pritzker wants those same people to pay most of the $3.4 billion proposed increase.

What if the story shared the fact that the lower 2 million Illinois taxpayers out of 5.5 million only pay $600 million of the $13 billion income tax currently. While the top 57,000 income tax earners moving out of Illinois might not be noticed, Illinois is losing over 40,000 residents a year with no slowdown forecast. I'll bet their billions of income tax dollars will be missed, and property tax dollars.

And how about the headline? "Illinois has no choice but to raise taxes by 600% on lower 2 million wage income earners." Now that would require some marketing.

This information comes from Illinois Income Tax Stratification data 2016, which is last posted info.

Scott Daniel

Vernon Hills

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