Nine law enforcement agencies throughout Illinois will be required to purchase body cameras for their officers starting in January, and Sen. Craig Wilcox (R-McHenry) predicts tax hikes will be instituted across the state to fund the mandate.
“For counties with populations over 500,000, the mandatory use of police body cameras takes effect on January 1, 2022," Wilcox posted on Facebook Dec. 22.
"This includes Lake County. When passing this bill, Democrats did not provide a revenue stream for this extremely costly mandate, so our police departments will have to find a way to fund it themselves," he continued. "That usually means a tax increase.”
In addition to Lake County, the body camera mandate will apply to police in the city of Chicago, as well as Cook, DuPage, Kane, and Will counties.
Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s three years in office have already resulted in 24 tax increases totaling $5.2 billion.
According to Illinois Policy, under Pritzker tax and fee increases have included doubling the motor fuel tax in 2019; increasing vehicle registration fees by $50; and increasing the tax on cigarettes, e-cigarettes and video game consoles. This year, four additional changes to taxes and fees have come, including cap and delay business loss deductions for three years, doubled tax profit earned abroad, delayed expensing of business investments and a reversed phase-out of corporate franchise taxes.
A March 18 report by the Tax Foundation lists Illinois as the state with the 10th-highest tax burden in the nation in 2019, as more than 11% of residents’ income was eaten up by state and local taxes. Among all states in the U.S., state-local tax burdens averaged 10.3% of national income.
Alerts Sign-up