As prices for gas and necessities keep climbing, the Illinois General Assembly is considering closing corporate tax loopholes and taxing offshore accounts or Illinois billionaires’ net worths while the state continues to rely on a growing share of personal income tax to fill the state’s general revenue fund.
For Illinoisans just trying to get by, increasing financial strain has been beset by an unstable oil economy after the U.S. began striking Iran earlier this year. Meanwhile, Illinois’ Democratic supermajority has been deadlocked on major bills as residents continue wincing at the gas pump and checkout lines. Last month, the Illinois House of Representatives balked at a bill that would grant voters a November ballot item on whether to tax millionaires in the state.
For those relying on SNAP benefits to feed themselves, the pressure is even greater, as home care worker Kayla Watson has seen firsthand.
“Since the SNAP cuts, a few of my clients who have been used to receiving $123 to $150 a month in Link and SNAP benefits no longer receive that. They got dramatically cut down to maybe $16 or $23 a month,” Watson told Illinois Times.
Watson mentioned a 69-year-old diabetic woman she cares for who relies on food banks to keep herself fed. As food bank supplies her client could eat dwindled, Watson purchased blood sugar-friendly groceries for her.
“I come out of my own pocket – which I receive no benefits at all – to ensure that her dietary needs are met and that she can eat three meals a day,” Watson said.
Watson, 38, enjoys caring for others and has been a home care worker in Sangamon County her entire adult life. There have been modest gains in recent years for service employee reimbursement rates set by the state.
Still, inflation and gas pump prices have skyrocketed to levels not seen since 2022 when Russia’s invasion of Ukraine destabilized global oil markets. According to AAA’s fuel tracker, the average price for diesel gasoline in the Springfield area just reached a record-high this month.
“I struggle. I definitely struggle,” Watson said. “I drive about 500 miles Monday through Friday, just for Help at Home and caring for the clients that I have with them in Sangamon and Christian counties. With gas averaging $4.85 to $5 a gallon, it takes about $140 bucks to fill my truck up, and I have to fill up twice a week.”
She and other SEIU healthcare workers are lobbying for a $2 wage increase for the Community Care Program within the Illinois Department of Aging.
“That would put us right at the baseline with DORS (Department of Rehabilitation Services), which is the other agency that I work for. Starting January of next year, they’ll be coming in making $20.75 an hour as a new hire, and here we are at Help at Home – just made it to $18.75 an hour,” she said.
Watson said she is concerned a growing pay discrepancy may hurt the program’s ability to field caregivers. Bills to increase pay for workers were introduced early in the legislative session, Senate Bill 120 and House Bill 1330. Although they have dozens of signatures from Democrats, the bills have been dormant in committees since last spring.
Some Democratic politicians in the Statehouse have attempted to address the massive reductions in federal reimbursements the state typically receives for public services, although the legislature has been beleaguered with weighty bills around regulating data centers and keeping the Chicago Bears in Illinois.
One of the measures proposed by progressives in the legislature includes House Bill 5318, which would require companies who conduct 80% or more of their business in foreign countries to fully report their profits to the state.
“If a related company does 80% of or more of its business outside the United States, it gets excluded from the corporate tax calculation entirely. That’s not a glitch, that is a choice,” said lead sponsor Rep. Maurice West, D-Rockford, at a press conference held to in early May to address revenue options. “Large multinational corporations can do business right here in Illinois, make money off of our workers, our infrastructure – our communities, and then legally shift their profits offshore to avoid paying Illinois (corporate) income taxes.”
Sen. Robert Martwick, D-Chicago, said the entire country has spent much of the past century catering to businesses in order to court labor and employment for its citizens, so corporations are simply taking advantage of the laws that are on the books.
“What they’re doing is perfectly legal. They didn’t break any laws,” he said. “But over the course of the last 80 years, every tax change that has passed this country – many here in this state – have been to the benefit of the wealthiest people and our businesses, our corporations – and the big ones.”
Martwick questioned what should be prioritized by politicians: “We know that there are people that are starving in the streets, do we care for them? Why not? We can’t afford it, and yet we give massive tax breaks to people who don’t need them, and we ask all of the people who are already suffering and struggling to pay more. I am not anti-business. I want our business community to thrive. I want people to do well.”
Sen. Lakesia Collins, D-Chicago, urged her supermajority to decouple from the federal tax structure that she said benefits corporations over people trying to survive paycheck to paycheck.
“Instead of allowing the states’ wealthiest corporations to double dip, raking in both federal and state tax breaks, let’s not get left behind by Michigan, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island and a growing list of other states who are refusing to conform with automatic handouts to people like Jeff Bezos,” Collins said.
Rep. Lindsey LaPointe, D-Chicago, supporting the same cause at the press conference, said she and her peers need to address Illinois’ tax structure.
“No doubt, we are at a time where the cost of living (is) choking families across the state. We are at a time when HR 1 is about to blow a hole in state budgets – including ours – across the country,” she said. “Let’s be really clear and simple about it: Illinois can no longer afford to be the eighth-most regressive tax state in the country. We fix that by passing these bills.”
LaPointe also said the common line from the Republican party about spending going up can really be attributed to three causes.
“When you account for inflation, when you account for pension contributions, and when you account for our evidence-based K-12 funding formula, the budget has only increased less than 1.5% since state fiscal year 2020,” she said. “We are not overspending in Illinois.”
There has also been a push to tax billionaire assets as unrealized gains, treating each asset as though it had been sold for its fair market value on Dec. 31 of the taxable year. Ultra-wealthy people in the U.S. commonly engage in a tax strategy where most money is held in valuable assets that can be borrowed against, rather than receiving a large income that can be taxed.
Senate minority leader John Curran, R-Lemont, said he wanted to hear more about how Illinois could track offshore assets but said the other proposals were nonstarters for his party.
“You’re talking about people who are the most mobile in society and it is very easy for them to go to another state,” Curran said of trying to tax wealthy residents. “So ultimately, what may sound like a good idea is just going to further drive more capital out of the state.”
Various proposals to tax millionaires and billionaires are being considered by legislatures in Democrat-led states across the country. The Illinois General Assembly adjourns on May 31.
This article appears in Summerguide 2026.
