We retired Tax Justice Blog in April 2017. For new content on issues related to tax justice, go to www.justtaxesblog.org
We’ve followed the tactics of corporations in Illinois, from Motorola to CME Group, who again and again ask lawmakers for pricey handouts they claim they need to keep doing business in the state. House Majority Leader Barbara Flynn Currie has called this egregious behavior “blackmail.” She recently said, “[i]t essentially is saying, if you don’t jump to, if you don’t go do this for us we might think about going somewhere else.”
Now the list of companies asking for handouts is growing, including: Archer Daniels Midland Company, OfficeMax, Zurich North America Insurance, Univar, and High Voltage Software. Giving individual companies special treatment is a violation of the neutrality principle and means that similarly situated companies are treated differently based on who can get the Legislature to bend to their will. Granting these singular incentives creates an environment wherein states end up competing in a “race to the bottom” and, ultimately, ordinary taxpayers pay the price through higher taxes or fewer services.
Illinois is facing an enormous budget crisis, due in part to the tax breaks for big multistate corporations that lawmakers have enacted over the years. Now is not the time for pandering to corporations at the expense of investing in the state’s future.