taxes

If you want to say that driving is expensive, you generally don't have to back up that statement with more than a nod toward the skyrocketing gas prices we've been dealing with for nearly a year (with no end in sight).

The big online retailers like Amazon, e-Bay, Etsy, and even the smaller online sellers didn't have to bother taking out Illinois sales tax until a law took effect in 2020 that required they charge the state sales tax of 6.25%.

I don't know how you run things at your house during Halloween season, but at our place, my wife Amy is in charge of allocating Halloween candy. Amy has a candy-buying rule that she lives by, and that is she'll only buy Halloween candy that we like.

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.

Coming on the heels of last week's news that Illinois has the highest taxes in the entire nation, we get a report that looks at Illinois' gas taxes and compares them to the rest of the country. We're not the highest, but...

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?

When you search for the definition of "cash crops" you get a pretty simple explanation.

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.

As you probably already know, Illinois leads the Midwest (and is near the top in the nation) in outbound migration. When people who are moving out of our state are asked why, the number one reason, by a wide margin, is a one-word answer: taxes.

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.