Of course, come election time, you'll hear some incumbents trying to tell Illinois residents that the F stands for fabulous, fantastic, or just freaking awesome.
If you've lived here in Illinois for any significant length of time, you already know that you're paying a lot in taxes of all sorts. But did you know that our state was taking this much from you?
So here's the great news as we head into a holiday weekend where more Illinoisans will be driving somewhere than we have in a decade: The new gas taxes kick in today.
It's not just a couple of million dollars more, either. The Illinois Department of Revenue says that sales of recreational weed has produced nearly $121 million in tax revenue for Illinois, compared to about $99 million for wine, beer, and/or spirits.
I'm sure that you'll recall that recreational weed sales started in Illinois in January of 2020. MedicalMarijuana.net reports that total sales numbers, including both medical and recreational, topped $1 billion dollars by December. That’s over 14.5 million products sold, and 25% of that went to out-of-state residents.
No matter how you look at it, 35 percent is a huge number of small businesses that have either temporarily or permanently closed their doors because of COVID-19.
There was some concern that Illinois wouldn't follow along with the federal government in extending the tax deadline, but at the end of last week, Governor Pritzker decided to get on board the tax deadline extension bandwagon.