Illinois is the most unfriendly state for taxes, study says Illinois has a reputation of being a high-tax state and one that is losing population, but is that a reality? According to one website, it absolutely is. This month, MoneyGeek.com published a study to "assess the tax-friendliness of all 50 states and the District of Columbia" and found Illinois is the most unfriendly state when it comes to taxes. Money Geek used data from the U.S. Census Bureau, the Tax Foundation and the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Consumer Expenditure Surveys. Armed with that, the website gave each state a grade, A being the best and F being the worst. The website looked at property, sales and income taxes in its calculations, as well as population change. Illinois families pay $14,778 in annual taxes on average, while Wyoming, the most tax-friendly state in the survey, has families pay $3,438, a difference of $11,340 each year. Illinois families, the study found, pay 16.9% of their annual income to taxes. The five states that got A's (Florida, Wyoming, Nevada, Tennessee and Alaska) experienced aboveaverage population growth of about 1%, while states that received an F (Illinois, Connecticut, New Hampshire and New Jersey) saw a slight decline of 0.1%. "Have taxes influenced their decision to move to a new state? MoneyGeek’s analysis suggests that the answer is 'yes,'" the website states. It found that in the top and bottom tax states, population growth or loss was tied to the state's tax grade. Illinois, the study states, lost 0.7% in population. Last year, Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker touted his 2023 budget as one that brought financial stability to the state and one that provided $1.8 billion in tax relief to families in Illinois. Among the items in the budget were: • a suspension of taxes on groceries for one year, which the governor says will save people $400 million • freezing the motor fuel tax for six months, which Pritzker says results in a $70 million savings • a $520 million one-time property tax rebate, which Pritzker said would amount to about $300 a household • expanding the Earned Income Tax Credit from 18% to 20% of the federal credit while increasing the number of households that would be covered. That, Pritzker's office said, would put about $100 million back into the wallets of families. Andy Kravetz Journal Star Page 10
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