The Illinois General Assembly has postponed face-to-face session meetings until such time that lawmakers and staff have received COVID-19 vaccinations. However, virtual committee hearings began on March 1. We’re monitoring the bills that could affect your small business.

Contact your legislators

Gov. J.B. Pritzker is still pushing a plan to decouple the Illinois tax code from federal legislation allowing small businesses to deduct losses associated with the COVID-19 pandemic. The governor’s plan didn’t get very far in January’s lame-duck session, and, with your help, we can stop it in the regular session. Click here to contact your legislators about this important issue.

Closing ‘loopholes’

Governor Pritzker has proposed $900 million worth of new costs on businesses that he and his allies refer to as “closing loopholes”. 

In fact, none of the business tax exemptions in the statute is a “loophole.” All of them were enacted by lawmakers specifically to incentivize business investment and job creations. Governor Pritzker even signed some into law.

One of these we want to highlight is the “retail discount”, which reimburses retailers 1.75% of the sales tax they collect for the state of Illinois. Because the state wants to collect sales tax, they require retailers to collect it and send it to the Department of Revenue. The 1.75% barely covers the cost retailers incur and on debit and credit card purchases, retailers will lose. The governor proposes to cap the reimbursement to $1,000 per month. And while that may sound okay to the smallest retailer, it won’t be long till they lower that to zero as they continue to look for more revenue.

NFIB opposes the governor’s continuing attempts to force businesses to pay for poorly managed state financial decisions. For decades, we have called for major structural changes and reform to the State’s spending and budgeting. Instead, they have either kick the can down the road and increased taxes and fees on taxpayers.

Virtual Small Business Day

Mark your calendar for April 6, 2021, and plan to attend our first virtual Small Business Day at the Capitol. We can’t all gather in Springfield because of the pandemic, so we’ll meet online. Speakers will include NFIB President Brad Close. We’ll announce other speakers and more details closer to the event.