by Kristina Rasmussen

Illinoisans should get ready for an unpleasant financial surprise in the New Year, and it won’t be your holiday shopping credit card bill. Rather, we could be faced with a much larger tax bill from Springfield.

Governor Pat Quinn is pushing a 75 percent state income tax increase, and it could be much larger. A supermajority vote threshold that has protected Illinoisans during the latter half of 2010 will disappear on January 1. Then it’s open season on taxpayers.

What you need to know:

• Tax Hike Calculator. How will a tax hike affect your family?
  
  
• 12 Reasons to Oppose the Quinn/Madigan/Cullerton “75 Percent” Tax Hike Package.  Learn why a vote for the tax hike is a vote for hastening Illinois’s economic decline.
  

• How to Lose Jobs and Alienate People: Proposed Tax Hikes Would Shrink Incomes and Destroy Jobs. Should the governor’s plan pass, the most immediate impact is that the average household will face an increase in their tax bill of $596. Even more troubling is that in the longer run there will be a much higher economic cost to pay in either lower incomes or fewer jobs. A new study from the Illinois Policy Institute found that Governor Pat Quinn’s 33 percent income tax hike will result a $1,353 personal income hit for each Illinois household or a loss of over 107,000 private sector jobs.

• Fact Finder: Is Illinois a "Low Tax" State? Advocates of higher taxes often use the argument that “Illinois is a low tax state” to make the case for revenue increases. Even if this statement were true, it doesn’t follow that the government should dig deeper into the pockets of hard-working families and businesses. However, a closer look at the data challenges the underlying assumption that Illinois is a “low tax” state. Illinois's tax system places significant burdens on families and businesses. 

• Fact Finder: Do Higher Taxes Chase Away People, Wealth, and Jobs? Nationwide data indicate that high tax burdens hurt economic growth. From 1998 to 2008, the ten lowest-taxed states economically outperformed the ten highest-taxed states on the following key measures:
  
• People. The ten lowest-taxed states had a 220 percent faster population growth rate than the ten highest-taxed states;
• Wealth. The ten lowest-taxed states had a 15 percent faster personal income growth rate than the ten highest-taxed states; and
• Jobs. The ten lowest-taxed states had a 58 percent faster employment growth rate than the ten highest-taxed states.

• Mixed Messages: How Governor Quinn's Tax Hikes Will Erase President Obama's Tax Cuts. Illinoisans should be wary of plans to hike taxes at the state level that would all but wipe out the benefits of the bipartisan tax compromise between President Barack Obama and Congressional Republicans.

If you want to let your state legislators know how you feel about this tax increase, you can look up your legislators here.

• Illinois Honest Taxation Pledge. Who has committed to voting against a last-minute, lame-duck tax hike?
  

• Billions and Billions: Putting the Looming Tax Hikes in Perspective. Governor Quinn’s $2.8 billion state income tax increase tops the $2.3 billion that Illinois households use to stock their kitchens with dairy products each year.

• Say it Ain't So: Massive Federal and State Tax Increases Around the Corner in 2011. A combination of the soon-to-expire Bush tax cuts and Illinois Governor Pat Quinn’s income tax hike plan would take a painful chunk out of the already-stretched family budget.
  

• Turning the Tables on Quinn’s Tax Hike: What Should Be Cut from Family Budgets? What should families cut from their household budgets to make room for higher tax bills?

• Out of Control: State Spending on the Rise. Illinois state spending has increased significantly over the past decade, increasing 26 percent after inflation from 2000 to 2009.

• Spotlights on Spending. The Spotlight on Spending series highlights wasteful or inefficient programs and spending with the goal of bringing more responsible spending and accountable government to Illinois.

• 2010 Illinois Piglet Book. The book that Springfield doesn’t want you to read, profiling over $350 million in wasteful spending.
  

• If You Built It, Debt Will Come: A Closer Look at the Illinois Capital Spending Spree. The latest piglet book identifies a series of egregious spending examples included in the $31 billion capital bill that is paid for by more borrowing, raising taxes and fees, and expanding gambling.

• Budget Solutions 2011: A New Way Forward. Budget Solutions 2011 offers an alternative budgeting plan that addresses our state’s immediate problems rather than kicking the can further down the road.

• Pension Funding & Fairness Act. By embracing the Pension Funding & Fairness Act, Illinois will be able to control spending excesses, budget responsibly, and fully fund the annual required pension payment.

• Shopping Without Price Tags: Improving Illinois’s Budget Via Fiscal Note Reform. State legislators receive precious little information on how much the laws they’re approving will save or cost taxpayers. The state’s “fiscal note” process should be improved as part of broader budget reforms.

• Economic Reform Agenda. A series of reforms focused on bringing jobs, responsible spending, and accountable government back to Illinois.