Kendall County Times

llinois Gov. JB Pritzker insists that tax cuts could be in play if state revenues continue to exceed expectations.

"I would like to see - as we feel comfortable with these new revenues coming in and their stability; and I think we're seeing a few years in a row now of the stability of that revenue - that we should be talking about whether there are tax cuts that we can implement," Pritzker said during an unrelated news conference held at a Springfield community college, quoted by ABC7 Chicago.

Pritzker's comment was made a week after the state legislature's nonpartisan Commission on Government Forecasting and Accountability (COGFA) increased its revenue estimates by approximately $1 billion for the current and upcoming budget years combined, the ABC7 report said.

The governor did not specify if tax cuts would be permanent or which taxes he and legislators are considering cutting, the report said. And tax cuts were only one of several potential uses of excess revenues the governor indicated he would like to consider. Others included contributions to the state's "rainy day" fund and additional payments beyond required amounts to the state's pension system.

In their budget approved last summer for the current fiscal year, lawmakers included a number of mostly temporary tax relief plans, including direct checks of $50 or more to most Illinoisans depending on income and number of children and a permanent expansion of the state's earned income tax credit to 20% of the federal credit, ABC7 reported.

In a statement to Capitol News Illinois, House Minority Leader Tony McCombie (R-Savanna) said the House GOP stands ready to work with the governor.

"To hear the governor mention any tax cuts is an exciting prospect for families across our state," McCombie said in the statement, quoted by ABC7. "At the first meeting I had with Gov. Pritzker, we discussed the cumbersome franchise tax on small businesses and high estate taxes that unfairly target family farms. The governor recognizing conversations with Democrats and Republicans gives me hope that we will reinstitute the bipartisan budget working group with our budgeteers and appropriation teams leading the way."