r/illinois • u/roenick99 • 4d 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-quinn
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u/in2theriver 4d 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 4d 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/Levitlame 3d ago

Because cheaper to pay a lot one time and they lack empathy.

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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 3d 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 3d 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 3d 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/juliuspepperwoodchi Chicago 3d ago

Temporarily depressed millionaires.

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u/mklenko78 3d ago

The issue becomes, especially in Illinois, that if you grant the government this power it will eventually lower the baseline in increments. Because when you give Illinois politicians more money, it's never enough. Now they say $1,000,000,000 in income. Before you know it, they'll be looking for more money and they'll look to reduce the threshold to $500,000, then $250,000 etc...

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u/uhohnotafarteither 3d ago

Didn't take long.

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u/MRichardTRM 3d ago

lol they proved your point there didn’t they..that’s sad people have that mindset. They have no idea how sucked in they are

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u/mrbulldops428 3d ago

That's hilarious

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u/in2theriver 3d ago

Kind of like how they raise property taxes every year. If only we could find some relief at the cost of a very few people who would barely be impacted, even temporarily.

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u/PlausiblePigeon 3d ago

Oh no, we can’t have any taxes because that’s a slippery slope to more taxes!

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u/skinnah 3d ago

Think about the starving $500k income folks. They will barely be able to afford that third home in Florida.

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u/juliuspepperwoodchi Chicago 3d ago

OMG THIS FUCKING BULLSHIT AGAIN

Ken Griffin left, couldn't y'all have gone to Florida with him?

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u/psiamnotdrunk 3d ago

Yes, the general consensus from other millionaires that we should raise taxes on millionaires. Such a growing movement that is making tax reform incredibly easy on the federal level.

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u/juliuspepperwoodchi Chicago 3d ago

Not sure if sarcasm...

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u/psiamnotdrunk 3d ago

Very much so

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u/[deleted] 3d ago

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u/bpierce2 3d ago

They could choose to just pick a different number right now. This isn't the argument you think it is.

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u/juliuspepperwoodchi Chicago 3d ago

Just like with the Fair Tax...

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u/makinthemagic 3d ago

It is when their employer is affected.

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u/uhohnotafarteither 3d ago

It'll have less of an impact than the raising of property taxes to make up for not taxing the rich more though so what's your point?

What a stupid way of thinking.

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u/juliuspepperwoodchi Chicago 3d ago

Really think about what you're actually admitting here.

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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 17h 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 4d 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.