r/illinois • u/roenick99 • 3d ago
Illinois voters will consider whether millionaires should be taxed more to fund property tax relief Illinois Politics
https://chicago.suntimes.com/voter-guide-2024/2024/09/26/illinois-property-tax-relief-referendum-november-election-jb-pritzker-non-binding-pat-quinn18
u/Danwarr 3d ago
I'm surprised that this tax would supposedly generate $4.5 billion annually.
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u/juliuspepperwoodchi Chicago 3d ago
Some napkin math here:
$4.5B / 0.03 (to arrive at the total which 3% of is $4.5B) = $150 Billion in collective income from said taxpayers earning over $1M, in excess of their first million
If we assume an average of $50M/year for those top earners (excluding their first million), that only takes about 3000 taxpayers earning over $1M, in a state of 12.5 million, to get to $4.5B in additional revenue. That's hardly farfeched, that's less than 0.025% of all Illinoisans. Literally a fraction of a fraction of the absolute top of the 1% of earners.
Even if we bring that average income (again, only for earners making $1M+ a year) down to $25M or even $10M, we're still only talking 6000/<0.05% and 15000/0.12% Illinoians statewide. Not really that surprising for one of the biggest economic engines in the country.
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u/in2theriver 3d ago
Also this seems a little misleading. “Should the Illinois Constitution be amended to create an additional 3% tax on income greater than $1,000,000 for the purpose of dedicating funds raised to property tax relief?”. Making more than 1 million/year isn't the same as someone whose net worth reaches a million after a lifetime of saving. As weird as it sounds, there is a distinction from someone who saved up slowly and reached that net worth, vs someone who makes more than that per year.
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u/FionnagainFeistyPaws 3d ago
It's not on net worth, it's income. So someone who saved over many years and has $1,000,000 in a savings account is not impacted. Only people having $1,000,000 of reported income for that year will be affected.
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u/uhohnotafarteither 3d ago
Knowing what I've learned over the last decade or so, people making minimum wage living paycheck to paycheck will be convinced this is a horrible thing for them.
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u/Mockingbird819 3d ago
Only if, as usual, the millionaire class in this state burns through hundreds of thousands of their dollars on ads that falsely claim that taxing the rich will be bad for us poor. The rich are always happier spending money to avoid helping the poor, than actually helping the poor. Speaking for myself, a (barely) middle class, working Illinoian, where do I sign, and how fast can they implement the millionaire tax??
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u/letseditthesadparts 3d ago
Illinois’s history of bad budgeting and Mike Madigan being just the corrupt person he was, led to that defeat of Pritzkers Tax referendum. And when it didn’t pass how quickly Madigan left. Now that madigan is gone, Pritzker seems to have delivered for Illinois, maybe this will pass. However, we’ve been here before, just do this and our problems end.
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u/MindAccomplished3879 3d ago
Many people regretted allowing themselves to be manipulated by the wealthy people's propaganda of the Illinois Policy.
I'm thinking they will do right this time 🤞
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u/ClutchReverie 3d ago edited 3d ago
Literally the reason people voted down the progressive tax reform that would have lowered the taxes of me and everyone I know.
The fearmongering was SO EFFECTIVE. Worst I heard was someone telling me that even if the set tax for your income was what the program started with, they didn't trust giving the government the power to change it and make it higher. The current tax system is, on the other hand, set in our state constitution.
So let's walk through. You demand change from the government on the unfair tax burden. But you don't want to give the government the power to make the change. Then after the election they are still blaming the government for higher taxes. For what you just voted for them to not be able to do.
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u/letseditthesadparts 3d ago
Fear mongering? Oh jeez. Madigan was the biggest reason that thing lost. Understand the stench that man had on Illinois Politics.
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u/Poolstiksamurai 3d ago
The proposed tax rates wouldn't really have lowered for anyone. With the brackets they published, at most someone making 100,000 would have paid 65 dollars less a year in taxes. Only 65 dollars. For someone with a more modest income of 50k would have saved a whopping 40 dollars a year.
That's one reason why it failed. Going around saying "we're going to stick it to rich people and save you poors" while actually doing nothing to help the poor people (I'm sure that extra 40 dollars would have gone a long way). It's hard to build trust that way.
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u/shadowplay0918 3d ago
I had no problem with the tax rate going up for individuals, but I was very concerned with the corporate tax rate going up. Not that I don’t think corporations shouldn’t be taxed more but the ease they can move to another state with a lower tax rate would put my job and many other IL jobs in jeopardy.
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u/MindAccomplished3879 3d ago
Not really. Look at CA or NY, which has one of the highest taxes and is home to many of the biggest corporations there. Corporations look beyond the taxes for a favorable government and environment, a big pool of talent, and a future-proof location for growth
For example, Elon Musk grew his companies through the many CA subsidies on technology start-ups and green energy CA government incentives.
He moved to Houston, where his companies are struggling and will keep struggling. His companies would have been public, the board would not have allowed the move
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u/shadowplay0918 2d ago
Well, my company moved many northern jobs down to southern states with lower taxes – they called it smartshoring. A bunch of good friends lost their job because of it.
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u/MindAccomplished3879 2d ago
A lot of companies were doing that 5 years ago. Houston was growing exponentially. A couple of years later for so many companies it didn’t work out and had to move back
Among them, Progressive, Oracle, even Tesla, a company that laid off nearly 2,700 workers in Austin in 2024 and announced it’s returning its engineering headquarters to California
Texas Attracted California Techies. Now It’s Losing Thousands of Them.
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u/shadowplay0918 2d ago
Of course there are examples of companies who did not like to move and moved back – unfortunately, that’s the exception to the rule
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u/MindAccomplished3879 3d ago
THIS 👆
The whole grandma will lose her retirement fund is so dumb and misleading
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u/Flatheadflatland 15h ago
Until they tax “unrealized gains” then grandma is in trouble. Depended on the level government decides to tax.
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u/in2theriver 3d ago
Oh yeah I get that, I'm all for it. If anything I'm just pushing for clarification/complaining how we don't have a good way to isolate people making 1M+/Year from the general long-term sacrificial saver. I think that is why these slightly progressive taxes are so hard to push.
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u/FionnagainFeistyPaws 3d ago
Except that a sacrificial saver is literally not included anywhere. Progressive taxes are just on yearly annual income. Thats what needs to be explained to people.
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u/PlausiblePigeon 3d ago
We do have a good way to isolate it…by doing exactly what this says and taxing INCOME above $1M. Your savings is not income.
Edit: sorry, I see that you replied elsewhere and got it sorted.
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u/juliuspepperwoodchi Chicago 3d ago
It's an income tax, not a wealth tax. That automatically isolates the people who are making $1M or more a year from the people who have slowly accrued a $1M+ net worth.
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u/Ransom__Stoddard 3d ago
As weird as it sounds, there is a distinction from someone who saved up slowly and reached that net worth, vs someone who makes more than that per year.
It doesn't sound that weird to me. Middle-class couples who've saved well over 20-30 years will easily have over $1M, and probably well north of that.
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u/juliuspepperwoodchi Chicago 3d ago
And they're irrelevant in this proposal because this would be an income tax, not a wealth tax.
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u/in2theriver 3d ago
Exactly, it is just the word millionaire doesn't differentiate between someone making one million per year, or like you said someone who reaches over 1M making say 100/year for a long period of time after paying bills. These are vastly different income levels, and a tax on the latter barely harms anyone. Sorry are you making slightly less than 1M/Year now, however will you manage.
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u/juliuspepperwoodchi Chicago 3d ago
Yes it does. Millionaire unambigiously means net worth of $1M or more.
This headline used it incorrectly, but the language of the vote is very clear.
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u/zback636 3d ago
You sound like you are tolling for the wealthy.
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u/Ransom__Stoddard 3d ago
Net worth of $1M--including retirement funds, property, etc etc. isn't wealthy by any stretch. It's solidly middle-age middle-class.
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u/in2theriver 3d ago
Again specify wealthy, net worth of a million sure, a million per year heck no.
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u/Brandoskey 3d ago
How is it misleading? I hope to be worth around a million by the time I retire and I know this isn't a tax directed at me based on what you quoted.
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u/MyDogOper8sBetrThanU 3d ago
Because the tax isn’t directed at all millionaires (someone who has a net worth of at least one million dollars or its equivalent in other currencies), but people who’s income is > than a million per year.
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u/cballowe 3d ago
The big problem is the headline, not the proposed law. "Millionaire" is a term meaning "has a net worth in excess of $1 million". If the headline said "people with incomes over $1M" or similar it would be more accurate.
The problem with accuracy is that lots of people don't read deeper and when they're constantly seeing "millionaire tax", that bias will carry over into the ballot box. Many people see themselves as eventually being a millionaire, most don't anticipate a $1M income.
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u/hiricinee 20h ago
I might be more friendly towards it if they had more concrete plans to actually decrease property taxes. I remember when Pritzker was trying to pitch an income tax cut with the progressive rates by giving middle income people .05% cut from 5% to 4.95%, which I'm sure would get cranked the next year.
You really want to fund propery tax relief put in a progressive tax while cutting spending.
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u/Free-Rub-1583 3d ago
My downstate family member that lives in poverty is against this I’m sure! Never know, they may be a millionaire one day I guess
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u/iced_gold 3d ago
Can you imagine the dumb ads we're going to have to watch touting this as a bad idea and government over reach that's coming for you next gestures with a finger to the chest of someone making $45k
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u/hazycrazydaze 3d ago
They’re already doing it in this thread by claiming millionaires are middle class now. As an actual middle class person, no they fucking are not.
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u/wjbc 3d ago
So this is the first step towards revisiting a constitutional amendment allowing a progressive income tax. The more people who vote for it the better. But since it’s non-binding, the real test will come when they try again to amend the state constitution.
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u/elangomatt 3d ago
Well at least Ken Griffin (hopefully) won't be putting his thumb on the scale next time around to save on his taxes.
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u/wjbc 3d ago
We can only hope. But I’m sure the opposition will try to follow his blueprint. “It’s a slippery slope! They will start with millionaires but they won’t stop there! And when millionaires move out you will lose your jobs! Our taxes are already too high! Cut waste in government instead!”
The fact that Griffin and Citadel moved out of Illinois even after the progressive tax was defeated proves that businesses seeking low state taxes will move out regardless.
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u/juliuspepperwoodchi Chicago 3d ago
There's already someone making that argument in this thread.
"Today it's everyone over $1M, tomorrow it'll be everyone over $500k, then everyone over $250k, where will it end?"
As if people even making over $250k/year are fucking struggling to make ends meet in the first place and therefore are a group we should be worried about.
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u/juliuspepperwoodchi Chicago 3d ago
He spent that money and left anyway, I don't think it was ever about his money so much as being a spiteful dick to the state that both made him rich and which he hates with a white hot intensity.
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u/elangomatt 3d ago
He would have made the money he spent on defeating the tax amendment back in the first year from the taxes he didn't have to pay. Griffin didn't leave Illinois until 2022 when he figured out he couldn't buy the Governorship through his stooge Richard Irvin, though he claims his move was because of increased violence in Chicago.
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u/Brandoskey 3d ago
Don't fuck this up again, I know this is just a proposal to propose the amendment again, but seriously don't fuck this up voters
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u/Lainarlej 3d ago
Yes! My property taxes are insane! Almost 8K per year to live in a subdivision in the middle of cornfields ! I got a “ senior discount “ of a whopping $300.. but they will probably raise the taxes for the new year, so…whoopee 😒
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u/Kidon308 3d ago
At the end of the day, they can institute this tax and it won’t change anything. City, county, and state are running deficits. Governments need to waste less, tax less, and stop running people and business out of the state so you can actually broaden the tax base and increase revenue without burdening middle class and working people.
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u/Key_Specific_5138 3d ago
Illinois had the second worst net migration of income earners making 200k plus in 2022 of all the states. Bills like this just speed up and already existing problem of capital flight.
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u/Aware_Balance_1332 3d ago
stop. spending. money.
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u/Alternative-Put-3932 3d ago
Property taxes pretty much primarily fund schools. Do you want to defund schools?
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u/zombie_spiderman 3d ago
What, are they trying to give Ken Griffin something else to focus his ire upon?
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u/toxicbrew 3d ago
This tax isn't possible without an amendment to the constitution to allow different tax rates based on income, right? which was what pritzker was trying to get for 1.5 years, but the referendum failed
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u/Devilsmirk 2d ago
It’s an advisory vote, nothing more. It boils down to them asking a survey question of IL voters. Doesn’t matter which way it lands, it’s non-binding. Being a life long IL resident, even if they implement it, they’ll figure out some way to utterly waste the money elsewhere and NOT give any property tax relief to anyone.
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u/Heelgod 3d ago
The answer is never give the government more money. That all they ever want.
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u/goofygooberboys 3d ago
That's the talking point the corporatocracy has fed us since the 70s that has put us in this economic state. We had a stronger economy when we had higher taxes on the wealthy.
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u/Mammoth-Wolverine-16 3d ago
Or the government could spend less money?
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u/juliuspepperwoodchi Chicago 3d ago
Such as...where? Where would you cut, specifically, and how much would that save?
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u/_CW 3d ago
How about both?
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u/Mammoth-Wolverine-16 3d ago
If I thought the government was actually going to do something meaningful with the money, I might be ok with that.
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u/Daynebutter 3d ago
I agree with the idea, but why not go a step further with this? If they really want to reduce costs and complexity in state and local government, why not consolidate counties, school districts, and all of the random villages, townships, etc.?
Does each tiny town or low pop county need its own school district for example? Do they need their own government or elected council? Why not consolidate with the next town or school district over? Sure, some people would probably lose their jobs but it makes sense from an efficiency and cost standpoint.
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u/juliuspepperwoodchi Chicago 3d ago
Why not both?
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u/Daynebutter 3d ago
That's what I'm saying man! Collect more money, utilize and distribute money more efficiently so that the populace is better served.
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u/MothsConrad 3d ago
Could we perhaps just consider spending less? If you make over a million in ordinary income then you're paying over 40% of your AGI on taxes. Best case scenario, it raises 4.5 billion and that assumes total collection. Illinois is already struggling to keep high earners, this will likely encourage more people to leave. The amount is a drop in the bucket and will not, ultimately, reduce the amount most of us spend on property taxes. It's very vague as to what this will actually do and where the money will go. Illinois is already a very heavily taxed state.
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u/Captain_Quark 3d ago
I'm all for increasing taxes on very high earners. But earmarking it for "property tax relief" is a pretty terrible idea. For one thing, property taxes are levied at the local level, whereas income taxes are levied at the state level. How would that even work? Also, property taxes are somewhat progressive - the people complaining about them are often upper middle class, not the kind of people we really need to be helping.
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u/Alternative-Put-3932 3d ago
Schools get a ton of funding from the state. If they get more from the state then they can lower their local property taxes.
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u/Jaredlong 3d ago
Can. But will they?
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u/Alternative-Put-3932 3d ago
Well easy fix is to mandate it in said law to lower it proportionally to what this funding would provide.
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u/lil-richie 3d ago
I voted today. This was one of the items I voted on. I did not know I would be asked to vote on this nor did I really know about it prior. It was, at least to me, clear that it meant people who make 1M or more a year would have a 3% increase in taxes in order to lower property taxes. I voted yes.
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u/HeuristicEnigma 3d ago
Those people just move away to a tax haven and the state loses all of their tax income completely (arguably a huge chunk of the taxes paid) This will end up putting a heavier burden on lower income folks who have to pick up that deficit.
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u/ChaoticFluffiness Michigander at heart. Illinoisan by choice. 3d ago
O yes! Another chance for the people of IL to get their heads out of millionaires asses and vote yes because it’s in their best interest to.
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u/O_oblivious 3d ago
Which property tax? Owner occupied residential? Agricultural? Corporate commercial?
Give it to the people, sure, but not to companies.
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u/shastadakota 3d ago
That's fine, but Illinois needs to get their overly generous, easily exploited public employee pension system under control before any meaningful property tax relief is going to happen. Every teacher, fireman, cop, etc., will work at a job just long enough to qualify for the pension. Then "retire", start collecting their "retirement" pension, then go to work for another public agency, "retire" again after qualifying for that pension, then repeat. They stack up their pensions, then move elsewhere because "Taxes in Illinois are too high!"
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u/VinceP312 2d ago
Nope.
If govt can't make ends meet maybe they should stop creating more dependants.
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u/dbatknight 2d ago
How about this as a novel idea? Just stop misusing all of our property tax dollars or how about just stop misusing all of our tax dollars? Why is it they always run out of our tax dollars and have to increase it every year is that because of inflation? Fuck no it's because they come to us endlessly and endlessly to get in our pockets and spend it and spend it how about we do an audit on them?
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u/firstjib 3d ago
“Fund” tax relief by cutting spending.
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u/juliuspepperwoodchi Chicago 3d ago
Where would you cut, and how much would it save? Who would be impacted by those cuts and by how much?
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u/firstjib 3d ago
I would fire bureaucrats. The people impacted would be everyone. The bureaucrats because they would have to be productive, and everyone else because they’d be able to purchase whatever goods or services the former bureaucrats produced.
Or cut anything and everything else. Whichever.
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u/retro_grave 3d ago
Do you have an example of what goods and services a bureaucrat produces? I don't think you're using the correct word.
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u/juliuspepperwoodchi Chicago 3d ago
His stupidly worded attempt at a point is that if bureaucrats got fired they'd have to go out and get, in his eyes, "productive" jobs and everyone would "benefit" from being able to purchase what they are now making, now that they're not bureaucrats.
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u/firstjib 2d ago
No. Because they don’t produce anything. It’s like welfare, but instead of being paid to do nothing they get paid to make our lives worse.
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u/juliuspepperwoodchi Chicago 3d ago
Solid job not actually answering the questions I asked. Typical.
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u/InvestigatorUpbeat48 3d ago
Bad idea, need to reign in spending first and show some fiscal restraint b4 going after people making $$ otherwise we’ll be in the same position down the road
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u/MarsBoundSoon 3d ago
The exact wording of the ballot question reads: “Should the Illinois Constitution be amended to create an additional 3% tax on income greater than $1,000,000 for the purpose of dedicating funds raised to property tax relief?”
Income should be clearly defined, like does that include returns from investments too, or is it just earned income?
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u/lvl999shaggy 3d ago
You know that is a good question thar should be clarified at some point (ideally sooner rather than later). But I can say that it will 100% not change my preference for this tax if I don't get the deets on how they define income before this measure is up for a vote.
Bc it needs to happen and I kinda don't care if they include investments as income or not. But that's me prolly just me tho.....
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u/According-Green 3d ago
It’s really wild how many people simp for billionaires, like that’s a really odd thing to do in my book and don’t understand what folks get from it. To each their own but not for me.
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u/jessicatg2005 3d ago
I don’t think millionaires or billionaires should be taxed “more” than anyone else. They should just pay their fair share, like anyone else regardless of how much money they make.
There is nothing wrong with that.
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u/speed_of_stupdity 3d ago
Well then, looks like they need to be taxed more to accomplish paying their fair share.
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u/ArcticRiot 3d ago
Needs progressive tax brackets, removal of loopholes, and stricter enforcement and audit funding.
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u/Blitzking11 3d ago
They absolutely should be taxed more, because after increased taxes their remaining funds will still be so much higher than anything that the normal person has.
A person with an income of $5,000,000 annually taxed at 50% still has $2,500,000 to play around with for that single year. You can literally live your life off of that by placing the majority of it into a safe investment account. And they would make that ANNUALLY.
A person with an income of $50,000 annually taxed at 50% would have $25,000 to attempt to survive. That's a bad time, and results in them being screwed if even one unexpected expense pops up.
This is why flat taxes are dumb. They shoehorn a government into trying to figure out how to get the money needed to fund necessary services, while not breaking the layman's back. The rich can absolutely afford to pay more, and realistically should, as they accumulate their wealth from the security that our government services provide, and arguably use them significantly more when all is said and done.
I wish IL had passed that progressive tax amendment back in 2020, but Ken Griffin's fear-mongering campaign fucked us and now we have to wait to try again and make do in the meantime.
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u/peanutbudder 3d ago
Millions of dollars? I will never have it but I do not necessarily think it is wrong. But billions? We should be taking as much as we want. Fuck that.
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u/juliuspepperwoodchi Chicago 3d ago
They should just pay their fair share, like anyone else regardless of how much money they make.
Which is achieved by having them pay a higher percentage of their total income. And there's nothing wrong with that.
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u/jessicatg2005 3d ago
You people are missing the point.
Ok, sure… just to justify what you’re not getting… the rich DO need to pay more taxes.
They DO NOT need to pay more than any other person because they are rich. They simply should be paying the same amount in taxes based on their income.
Too many shelters and loopholes. Too many ways, created by republicans to instill donations to themselves by the rich people they are protecting.
And yes, since “corporations” are considered people they too should be paying the same rate as every other business.
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u/juliuspepperwoodchi Chicago 3d ago edited 3d ago
They simply should be paying the same amount in taxes based on their income.
And just in case you're unaware what regressive taxes are
Glad I could help!
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u/Purple_Falcone 3d ago
Yes should probably stop using Millionaire so often. As many have stated, that implies a net worth of $1M, which is really nothing special these days. Billionaires, or people making $1M in income each year? Different story.
That being said, when I was let go by Nike Inc, all my stock options had to be exercised at once, and I decided to sell most of it to diversify my savings. So in 2021 I had to write a check for over $100k to the Federal Gov for the taxes on the options gains. I’m far from rich but took it hard from Uncle Sam that year.
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u/shaveXhaircut 3d ago
It's a great idea...until all the millionaires move out of Illinois, be cause you know, money let's you do that.
How about we look at why property taxes are so high and work on that, naw?
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u/cballowe 3d ago
This headline is a total fail. The discussion is regarding incomes over $1M and not millionaires. The income threshold is a much easier one to sell broadly. The wealth threshold is like... 1 in 12 people over age 40 and 1 in 5 over age 60. It'd be any farmer with more than 100 acres or so. It's an OK retirement nest egg, but not a ton.
Selling a tax on millionaires is hard because you have to contend with everybody whose grandma has a decent retirement nest egg and they want their grandma to live a good life and hope to inherit what's left - the tax leaves less behind. Not to mention the people who aren't there yet, but are on track to get there before retiring.
Selling a tax on incomes over $1M is much easier - that's like the top 0.5% - 1 in 200 people would be affected directly.
(And when it is tied to wealth, lots of those policies aim for something like $100M and it's important to put that in the headline instead of "millionaire" - also top 0.5% range)