SPRINGFIELD — Just one week before the Illinois General Assembly is set to adjourn, Senate Democrats on Friday unveiled a $1.8 billion package of “inflation alleviating relief” for Illinois taxpayers that tops what Gov. J.B. Pritzker offered earlier this year.
The governor had proposed $1 billion in tax relief when he outlined his ambitious $45.4 billion budget proposal in February.
Citing unspecified “additional resources,” Senate Democrats want to increase the election year largesse.
The Senate package, among other things, would suspend the state grocery tax and the state’s portion of a gas tax increase for six months. That idea was first offered by Pritzker in February during his “State of the State” address, but the governor’s version of the proposed relief would have lasted the entire fiscal year.
But the Senate plan proposes other savings for taxpayers that its sponsors say will provide the extra relief.
“This plan improves the governor’s ideas and goes farther because we’ve worked on budgeting, and additional resources are available,” said state Sen. Elgie Sims, D-Chicago, the legislative sponsor of some of the new initiatives.
The lawmakers’ and the governor’s ideas on how to ease inflation aligned on a proposal meant to provide property tax relief for homeowners. Both would allow certain homeowners to be eligible for a tax credit of 5% of their property tax bills up to $300.
State Sen. Elgie Sims speaks during a news conference in November.
Ashlee Rezin/Sun-Times file
But the Senate plan also proposed a state sales tax holiday on school supplies and clothing for a nine-day period in August, increasing the Earned Income Credit from 18% to 19%, providing a $250 tax credit on school supplies for teachers and an up to $500 tax credit for volunteer firefighters and EMS workers.
The new proposal would also see those who filed a state tax return for last year receive an additional tax refund. Individual filers who made up to $250,000 for the 2021 tax year would receive $100, and joint filers who made up to $500,000 would receive $200 in the form of check in their mailboxes by this fall. Both groups could receive an additional $50 for each dependent they claim, up to $150.
Pritzker’s spokeswoman said the administration would consider the new ideas.
“We look forward to reviewing this proposal. Our conversations with members of the General Assembly in both chambers have been productive, and we will continue to focus on delivering fiscally responsible relief for working families,” Jordan Abudaayyeh, a spokeswoman for Pritzker’s office, said in a statement.
But state Senate Republican Leader Dan McConchie, R-Hawthorn Woods, slammed the proposal as an “election year stunt.”
“Under their plan, checks and relief will arrive right before the election and then will expire right after the election. This is not the real reform the people of this state want and need, and Illinoisans will see right through this disingenuous gimmick,” the Republican said in a statement.
The package is a preliminary step in hammering out the state’s budget. The legislative session is set to end next Friday, but legislators actually have until May 31 to pass the budget and other bills without requiring super majorities for them to take immediately.
Any bills passed after May 31 require a three-fifths majority for the law to go into effect within the next 12 months.
A three-fifths supermajority requires at least 71 votes in the House, and 36 in the Senate. The Democrats have those votes within their own caucus with 73 members in the House, and 41 in the Senate.