On May 31, the Illinois General Assembly closed its regular legislative session, without a budget agreement.

Senate Bill 9

As we previously reported, the Senate passed a modified version of Senate Bill 9 (Bill), a tax proposal that is part of the Illinois “Grand Bargain” that we described in a previous post. The version of Senate Bill 9 that passed out of the Senate passed the House Revenue Committee on May 29 on a partisan vote. The House has extended the Bill’s final action deadline to June 30.

The current version of the Bill is similar but not identical to the version that we have previously described. Some of the more significant amendments include the following:

Two New Taxes. The Bill now proposes to create two new taxes. The “Video Service Tax Modernization Act” purports to impose a tax on satellite television and streaming television services at a rate of 5 percent of the gross revenues that a provider earns from its Illinois customers. The Bill also creates the “Entertainment Tax Fairness Act” which seeks to tax viewing “entertainment,” defined as “paid video programming whether transmitted by cable service, direct-to-home satellite service, direct broadcast satellite service, digital audio-visual works service, or video service.” The tax rate is 1 percent of charges paid by the customer. Both taxes exempt satellite or subscription radio services and can be passed-through and collected from customers.

Income Tax. The Bill now proposes to increase income tax rates for individuals, trusts and estates to 4.95 percent (rather than the previously proposed 4.99 percent rate). Also, the tax rate increases, including the increase to 7 percent for corporations (corporate increase unchanged from the Bill’s prior version), continue to be permanent.

Sales Tax Base Expansion. The current version of the Bill removes repair and maintenance services, landscaping services, cable television services (but see “Two New Taxes” described above) and some personal care services (including nails and hair removal) from the Bill’s expansion of the Illinois sales tax base.

It is difficult to predict whether any portion of Senate Bill 9 will be enacted. Since the Illinois General Assembly’s regular sessions have now ended, legislative approval will require a three-fifths majority and, to date, the governor has refused to endorse the legislation.

Senate Bill 1577

We have previously reported on Senate Bill 1577, which proposes to increase the penalty amounts imposed for violation of the Illinois False Claims Act. The bill passed the House on May 30 with the exception for certain low dollar tax claims as previously described.