Letter: Governor Rauner fortunate to live in Illinois
Posted at 8:00 PM
If Gov. Bruce Rauner were chief executive of any of Illinois’ contiguous states he would have paid at least $1.4 million to $2.7 million more on his state income tax form than he did on his Illinois 1040. The governor’s recently released form indicated he paid $3,248,605 on a net income of $91,354,858. The 2016 tax rate was 3.75 percent.
Wisconsin, one of Rauner’s paragons of governmental virtue, has a top individual rate of 7.65 percent. As best I can tell without the governor’s backup forms, his Wisconsin bill would have been nearly $6 million.
Indiana, another state the governor seems to find virtuous, has a flat state rate of 3.3 percent, but the state form also includes a county income tax of 1.77 percent applicable in the state capital for a total 2016 rate of 5.07 percent. The governor would have paid about $4.6 million in Indiana.
Missouri and Kentucky have top rates of 6 percent and Iowa’s top rate is 8.98 percent! His bill would have been millions higher in those states.
Illinois has raised its rate to 4.95 percent, but that still is lower than the rates the governor would have paid in any of Illinois’ neighbors. And I thought Illinois was supposed to be the high-tax state.
Brent Bohlen
Springfield
Above is from: http://www.sj-r.com/opinion/20171111/letter-governor-rauner-fortunate-to-live-in-illinois
