Hours after Illinois Democrats pushed through more than $800 million in new taxes, another tax increase backed by Governor JB Pritzker quietly advanced in the Chicago region.
On June 1, the Regional Transportation Authority approved a new 0.25 percentage point sales tax increase for northeastern Illinois. The increase is scheduled to begin August 1 and is expected to generate roughly $553 million on the backs of people visiting and living in Chicagoland.
The tax hike was made possible under last year’s transit legislation, Senate Bill 2111, which created the new Northern Illinois Transit Authority and set the stage for replacing the RTA with a new governing board. That new board is expected to take office on September 1.
Senate Republicans say the timing is telling. On the same day Democrats were advancing hundreds of millions of dollars in additional taxes to fund their ballooning state budget, another Pritzker-approved tax hike from last year was being put into motion.
What this means for families and visitors to the Chicago region is higher sales taxes starting this summer. Senator Syverson, who opposed the transit bailout last year, said this is just another example of how Governor Pritzker and his Democrat allies continue to pile their problems onto hardworking Illinois taxpayers, answering spending problems with higher taxes.