Illinois "Tax Swap" legislation at a glace
The Trib has an informative interactive gizmo for calculating, based on average income for your zip code, what your new tax bill would be if the proposed "tax swap" legislation is adopted in Illinois.
This measure sounds practical and desirable at first glance. As the Trib puts it: "State lawmakers are considering a $5.8 billion tax reform plan that would increase the income tax rate from 3 percent to 5 percent, and reduce school property taxes by about 30 percent.
The idea is to bolster aid to public schools while lessening reliance on local property taxes that create disparities between wealthy and poor districts. If the tax reforms are approved, the basic state school aid for 2006-07 would rise significantly — from $4,964 per pupil to $6,100"
But the results are not pretty. Take a look and plug in your zip code, or follow their instructions for how to calculate how this would impact your individual taxes.
Thanks to alert reader Cal Skinner for pointing me to this site.
posted by The Inside Dope @ 5/18/2005
1 comments
1 Comments:
I'm with you on this Hud. The goals of this process are entirely laudable.
As I read more about the issue, it appears that the disparity between how much property taxes would be raised among various areas of the state is directly linked to how much money that area already gets from the state for education.
This is why the collar counties, which are currently the highest receipients of state education dollars, will see their property tax rates raised the least, while some areas downstate which currently get relatively little state money will see pretty shocking increases in their property tax.
But it's been observed that the Tribune and the article referenced in this post has almost assuredly killed any chance for this proposal to pass.
I'm no fan of ever increasing taxes, by any means, but I feel that the Republican inspired mind-set where most people feel justified in expecting their taxes to NEVER go up, no matter what the purpose, even to the point where they loudly whine and scream if their taxes aren't actually lowered is largely to blame.
The ground has shifted to the point where all politicians believe that to support ANY tax increase, for any purpose, is political death.
This of course is just what Grover Norquist and others wanted all along. Once that irrational mindset is implanted, it ensures that the right's goal of starving government to death is in place and working. It will lead to the elimination of most of the New Deal, most of the social safety net, and hundreds of other government programs designed to provide a better quality of life for all.
The cold hard fact remains that nothing comes for free, and that all the reckless and ill-conceived tax give-aways to the upper class that Bush has managed to pass are only shifting the burden to states and municipalities.
Remember that measely tax break you got John Q. Citizen? The one that got you to fall in love with Bush? Well, surprise, surprise, you're going to pay that and much more now as a result.
I only hope that the Dems can make this connection known more widely.
How the right has convinced the country that we can spend record amounts of money while making enormous and radical slashes in government revenue sources and that it's fine to refuse to fund your own government while screaming if the government doesn't give you what you expect, is nothing short of amazing.
Here's the logic: The government is the problem, so they shouldn't get any tax money. The government is thus underfunded severely and services suffer. Then the public becomes outraged and the right points to these failures as further evidence of why government is "inefficient" and should be further denied funding.
What a perfect little scam. Except it's reasoning is totally deceptive and insane.
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