#315. How bad can it be?
Posted on | The Agurban|
How bad can it be?
You have undoubtedly heard by now that the State of Illinois (our home state, so we can talk about it), passed legislation that significantly raised individual income and corporate income taxes. Illinois’ one-rate individual income tax rate rose from 3% to 5%, a 67 percent increase. The corporate income tax increased from 7.3% to 9.5%, a 30 percent increase. According to The Tax Foundation, a nonpartisan tax research group based in Washington, D.C., “Illinois’s tax climate ranked 23rd in the country last year in terms of favorable places to do business, but that ranking has now dropped to 36th-a sign that the state has, overnight, become a significantly less attractive place to invest.” Great! So we were curious. Can we find out how much income Illinois has lost out on because of outbound migration? Thanks to The Tax Foundation again, yes, we can. Visit here to see the data for all 50 states. The table will tell you how many people and how much income moved to and from that state, from and to every other state, in the time period you’ve chosen. For example, in the most recent 5 years for which data is available, 2003 – 2008, in Illinois, the state has lost 109,457 tax filers, that included 255,850 exemptions. The adjusted gross income lost in Illinois alone during that period was nearly $10 billion! We are hanging in there! Hopefully Illinois residents and businesses will too. We will keep our eye on this over the next few months. |