Last week, the Rose Friedman Society circle met to discuss Taxation & Fiscal Responsibility, with a focus on IL Tax problem. Everyone was astounded by the complexity and level of taxes in IL. Many of us showed the videos to their kids, and it works they start noticing taxes on receipts! The discussion was timely as the Counties & Townships committee meets this coming week to discuss bills on Transparency and Government Transparency – each of us agreed to try to make a call of encouragement to members of the committee by TUESDAY.
We were 33 women! We divided into 3 circles respectfully facilitated by Joan, Beth and Sylvie. Susie, Cindy, and Barbara took notes and reported back to the group, and Susan put together this great summary of our discussion.
Here’s what we learned and highlighted:
- Obsessive taxes (public and private) are the result of inefficiency (too many layers) coupled with a spending problem
- If IL taxes were frozen today, it would take 28 years to account for our debt!
- We need tax transparency on tax bill websites and accountability
- Legislature needs to change and vote on the record which would help explain where the money is going Department of Education should be focused on simplifying the tax code Reform should equate tax control and getting spending under control
- Watch these videos on taxes which promote everyone needs skin in the game: several engaging and educational videos from Izzit.org and PragerU to help explain some of the history of tax collection, how taxes work in the U.S., the differences between progressive and flat taxes, etc. These are also great resources to share and watch with your kids!
- There are too many loopholes to reduce overall taxes
- IL (and federal) high corporate taxes are driving businesses away
- Pensions and term limits need to be changed
- Property taxes growth is astounding; it is double that of the inflation rate
How can we change things?
- Educate and be a voice, look at the contacts in the brief to write to your appropriate representatives or lobbyists, all of the emails/letters are documented, show interest, and is useful for statistical data supporting or negating current issues. Here’s a post on Main Street Tax Reform.
- Use Facebook to post comments and share how others can also take action with specifics on how to contact committees and make a difference
- Face to face connections have the biggest impact in policies (i.e., find stories from real people and add them to a website or create a forum for sharing stories)
- Bills to educate yourself with: HB 4501 which deals with local government consolidation and HB 5522 which deals with government transparency. These bills are now in Committee which means that the next steps is the Governor’s approval. (we had a chance to look again at how bills get passed in IL). We agreed to contact members of the committee on Monday and Tuesday. Here are the details.
- Write Governor Rauner a thank you note for trying to move IL forward, he needs it!
What have we missed? Post it here! Thanks for coming, next meeting will be in May on Poverty or Higher Education.
