Yesterday, the Illinois House of Representatives voted to approve placing a proposed amendment to the Illinois Constitution on the 2020 voter ballot. This amendment would allow imposing higher income tax rates on taxpayers with higher incomes, as opposed to the flat tax rate called for under the Illinois Constitution since 1970.
Yesterday’s Memorial Day vote was strictly on party lines, and followed a similar move by the Illinois Senate in early May. One thing the debate over and passage of the measure didn’t follow, however, was any discussion of Illinois’s financial statements for fiscal 2018, a fiscal year that ended June 30 last year.
That's because Illinois still hasn’t released those statements, as of mid-2019! Illinois legislative representatives chose to move ahead anyway, even though the latest financial results from an audited financial report available to citizens and their elected representatives are for a year that ended almost 700 DAYS AGO! This year, the report is significantly later than the last two years.
Taxpayers have a date by which they have to file their tax returns. Illinois government leaders apparently don't think they need important financial statements before they release grandiose budget plans, or pass important tax legislation.
We will be monitoring the accounting and financial reporting implications of the Illinois income tax debate closely in the months ahead. Why legislative leaders chose to go ahead without a public annual report for last year – well, things don’t appear to off to a good start re: rational legislative deliberation.