Illinois is considering several bills that will without a doubt drive more businesses and individuals out of the state. One of them is likely illegal.
Gas Tax Hikes
Please consider Bill Seeks to Increase Illinois’ Gas Tax to Fund Road Repair.
Illinois lawmakers are considering raising the state’s gas tax by 19 cents a gallon and hiking vehicle fees to pay for transportation infrastructure repairs.
Legislation introduced last week proposes the state’s first gas tax increase since 1990 and could raise an additional $2 billion in revenue each year, the Chicago Tribune reported. But it also would hike the electric-vehicle fee from $17.50 to $148, and increase truck registration fees by $100.
The fees for driver’s licenses would double under the proposal, from $30 to $60, while passenger vehicle registration would increase from $98 to $148.
Where Would the Money Go (Part 1)
“Doubling the state gas tax would bring Illinois to the second-highest overall gas tax burden in the nation, notes the Illinois Policy Institute.
Supposedly these tax hikes would go for road repairs. Perhaps about 10% would. The rest would go to bail out bankrupt Illinois’ pension plans.
Netflix Tax
Next, please consider ILLINOIS BILL WOULD EXPAND CHICAGO’S ‘NETFLIX TAX’ STATEWIDE.
House Bill 3359 would create the “Video Service Tax Modernization Act” and “Entertainment Tax Fairness Act,” which would impose new taxes on satellite and video streaming service providers and subscribers. Users of those services would pay a 1 percent tax “for the privilege to witness, view, or otherwise enjoy the entertainment,” while companies would pay a 5 percent tax on their gross revenues.
Chicago currently stretches the definition of its 9 percent citywide “amusement tax” to include online streaming services such as Netflix and Spotify, as well as Playstation rentals.
The legality of Chicago’s “Netflix tax” is dubious. The Liberty Justice Center, the Illinois Policy Institute’s litigation partner, sued the city on behalf of streaming service customers in 2015, after the expansion of the tax to online services went into effect. The city tax was previously applied only to ticketed live entertainment performances and events.
The Center argued expanding the tax to online services violates the 1998 Internet Tax Freedom Act, a federal law. The Act prohibits taxes that discriminate against electronic commerce levied by any government body, including state governments, suggesting Illinois could expose itself to similar legal risks should HB 3359 become law.
Where Would the Money Go (Part 2)
This tax hike is even easier to state. No matter what anyone says, 100% of this money would be diverted to bail out bankrupt Illinois’ pension plans.
Constitutional Amendment
These hikes are on top of a major Constitutional Amendment change to make the Illinois state income tax “Progressive”. Rest assured it will dramatically increase taxes on the middle class no matter what these parasites say.
Get the Hell Out
I repeat my caution of last week: An Illinois’ Demographic Collapse Is on the Horizon.
Get Out As Soon As You Can!
Yes, we live in Illinois. I expect to be out of this hell hole within 18 months. Plans are underway.
Mike “Mish” Shedlock
So will Mish, like millions of others from failed blue states, move to red states and then proceed to destroy them also? Just look at Colorado and Florida.
How about we force those who voted for the messes of Chicago and Illinois suffer for the politicians they put in power?
Stupid should hurt. You should live under the crap you want for everyone else.
It’s the punishment the self proclaimed “small government” Red staters receive, and deserve, for not making sure their government is solidly constitution bound to actually be small. The US founders effed that one up too. Kind of sad how every single one of the “Red” states, keep making the same mistake.
Before the Bluetrash gets there, put in place an amendment stating no income tax, no sales tax, no other activity tax, no gun laws, no zoning and land use laws, no fines (only prison), no civil liability absent either an individually and explicitly signed contract or at a minimum proper juries of peers criminal indictment and conviction, no pretty much any other law come what may; even if “the experts” claim the inevitable result is immediate starvation and death of the entire planet.
Of course the trash will exploit every angle they can to rob and harass you, if they can. That’s what trash do. They can’t help themselves even if they wanted to. So, make sure they simply can’t. No.matter.what.
Just a FYI. California had in their State Constitution that marriage is defined as a union between one man and one woman.
Didn’t really help them.
Which is why a “cannot be changed, amended, modified, eased, reinterpreted nor in any other way altered, by any other means than all out armed revolution leaving at least 10%s of the population dead and landmass burned” type amendment is so important, and which is what the “red” states should focus on before getting inundated.
That’s the one the US Founders, naively, failed to include. And without that one, and a population sufficiently armed to defend that particular amendment, any constitution is nothing more than cute words on a piece of paper. And any population living under any government supposedly bound by it, is nothing but indentured slaves in the making.
All and any government will do all that they can to rob, harass and indenture everyone they can. It’s what governments do. It’s all governments do. The only way to prevent them from doing so to an ever increasing degree, is to make it physically, financially and militarily impossible for them to do so. Legally matters not one whit, as government is ultimately in control of all laws, their interpretation and their enforcement. They’ll bend the laws to excuse whatever they want to do.
Washington state explicitly disallows income tax in its constitution. But who cares when the elected justices can be bought to reinterpret the constitution. An income tax legislation is currently on its way…
Colorado has gone full libtard. Just left ‘sorry for the profanity”.
I am surprised you have decided to stay this LONG, when these ‘messages’ were coming long time ago! Are you tied with RE properties, business obligation/family obligations? Or hoping that changes will come for better, in the near future?
Chicago will be the new Detroit soon after the next decade begins. Sell your house and get out of there now!
Should have done a long time ago! Whom are you going to UNLOAD and who with any functioning ‘grey tissue willing to take it?
Fall of the Chicago Empire.
History rhymes over and over again.
All of this to pay excessive pensions from a corrupt and highly abused pension system.
The piece de resistance is when pension recipients leave the state once their pensions begin, leaving the state without even the pension recipient helping to cover the massive cost to fund their retirement.
Absolute madness and stupidity.
Illinois is just doing this before every one else does it. All governments are broke and their top priority is their sustenance. Not their constituency.
Illinois is so small geographically that its residents will buy gas in neighboring states.
People in Massachusetts love to shop in New Hampshire to avoid sales taxes. People in Connecticut buy gas in Massachusetts to avoid gas taxes. People in NY buy gas in NJ.
But yes, this new Gov has a shitload of new spending proposals
“I totally disagree with the premise that these new taxes will go to support the unfunded pension liabilities.”
Something like 85% of the last corporate tax hike “for the schools” went to pensions
I have a much better idea for raising much need revenue for government.
How about taxing at 1,000,000,000% PERCENT all income for each every citizen and public official who supported the Iraq War and/or, Syrian War, Afghanistan War, Lybia War, Yemen War, Somalia War, Venezuela War and any and all other wars and regime changes…plus an interest rate of 1,000,000,0000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000% per micro second and all interest compounded per micro second at same rete for past due tax owed.
Any public official not in full payment complain to be imprisoned forever until all debt paid.
It’s only fair.
Nice thing about unions is that they can’t follow taxpayers out of the state.
Don’t bet on it. The banksters certainly followed tax payers to the ends of the earth a decade ago.
It’s pathetic…. but no surprise since this corrupt idiot won against Rauner… who is most likely happy to be out of here. The state is broke and unlike the Feds, it can’t ‘print’ money… so….we get this farce… which is needed to point out the obvious to the idiots that still believe the OWO can be fixed. Like the Russiagate farce, all of these machinations of the OWO, state or fed, has to be faced, unmasked… and Illinois is in line to face ‘the man in the mirror’… and it’s not a pretty reflection… the truth never is here in ‘purgatory’.
I totally disagree with the premise that these new taxes will go to support the unfunded pension liabilities. If they did, that would be a huge break from past behavior. A much more likely outcome is that these new taxes will support new spending, and that the unfunded pension liabilities will be kicked down the road to be dealt with later.
Got to make up for the losses on the Smollett case somehow, right?
Illinois unions have won. They’re now sucking $10 Billion annually in unfunded obligations out of Illinois taxpayers. If this entire 19 cent tax gas ripoff were applied to just unfunded pensions, it would only cover one fifth. Get out before you have to walk.
Mish has talked about relocating to the western US. Moving requires preparation.
Einstein indicated doing the same thing over and over (raising taxes) and expecting a different result was the definition of insanity. Illinois politicians are demonstrating real genius.
How many straws can they add to the camel’s back before it breaks? This is so sad and it will only get worse for those that cannot escape the state and its taxing authority.
Anyone can escape them, as long as it’s just Illinois:. Just walk on out to another state. They haven’t (yet) built a Berlin Wall, complete with gun towers. Although I have no doubt that’s on the way, seeing how every other policy of the DDR either has been, or is in the process of being, implemented. Now including spying on what people watch on their computer.
The quicker the competent leave, and starve the leeches to (literal if need be) death, the better.
I’m still concerned the Fed and feds will just take over as robbers of last resort, as they always do. Implementing a de facto Berlin Wall by other means. If Americans in general had a quarter brain and spine left; they couldn’t get away with that. But if Americans were that well endowed, Hank Paulson would have been fishfood within a day of releasing the first dollar of banking bailout funds, and the funds’ recipients would have been relegated to dangling from lampposts. So, obviously: Brains, spine and Americans in general, don’t have much overlap.
And you have not left yet.
See Lot’s wife.