SPRINGFIELD - Families of four that make $45,000 or less each year would get a 100% increase in their tax break in the Earned Income Tax Credit if State Representative Barbara Flynn Currie's (D-Chicago) SB 400 passes the Senate and is sent on to the Governor. Currie told her colleagues that low-income families were in great need of relief from Illinois' new 67% income tax hike earlier this year.
"Can we afford this tax break?" State Rep. Dwight Kay (R- Glen Carbon) "We already have a tax break for the low income families, I fear it will be the state's middle-income families that end up paying for this. Illinois is penniless," he said.
Rep. Currie disagreed. "I do not believe we are broke in Illinois," she said. "This will cost us less than the bill that's scheduled to come up next." (Referring to the CME and Sears tax break legislation)
State Rep. Mike Fortner (R- West Chicago) said SB 400 would 're-direct' wealth unless we roll back the 67% income tax increase on all Illinois taxpayers, not just low-income families.
SB 400, which would increase the EITC by 100%, from 5% to 10% will benefit only those that annual make- under $45,000. It passed the Illinois House in a 67 to 49 vote.
