Laurence Msall argues tax increase needed for a while longer

Civic Federation President Laurence Msall was on WBEZ’s Morning Shift on Tuesday morning to discuss the group’s push to keep Gov. Quinn’s income tax increase in place for the state’s 2015 budget.

Msall argues that the temporary increase, put in place in 2011, is needed for Illinois to continue to meet its budgetary oblications. But he also says that the tax increase should start to be pulled back, after a one-year stay, over the following three years.

Listen to his discussion on WBEZ:

Dave Mckinney reported on Sunday that the Civic Federation solution after tax rates begin to ebb would be to then tax retirement income.

The Civic Federation’s five-year plan would eliminate the state’s $5.4 billion backlog of unpaid bills while gradually reducing income tax rates by 20%, broadening the income tax base to include federally taxable amounts of retirement income and building a reserve fund as protection against future economic downturns, said Laurence Msall, the Civic Federation’s president. Politically attractive efforts are no longer enough to address the enormous financial challenges we’ve created for ourselves, he said. All Illinoisans will need to share the burden of fixing the State’s problems.

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