Robert Bruno: Working Illinoisans pull their weight in taxes. Billionaires need to chip in too.

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Robert Bruno: Working Illinoisans pull their weight in taxes. Our future depends on billionaires doing so too.

Our tax code is rooted in a simple principle: If you work hard for a living and pay what you owe, you deserve a fair shot at building wealth. As a professor of labor and employment relations, I have studied why this fundamentally American concept feels more like mythology for most working people.

Between 1980 and 2018, the top 1% of Illinois households saw their incomes rise by 111.6 %. In that same time, the median household saw a real income growth of only 8.5%. Since inflation rates reached an eye-opening 8.5% in March, that income growth has already failed to keep up with historically high costs for gas, fuel and housing.

But inflation alone doesn’t explain why working-class and middle-class families in Illinois actually pay a larger share of their income in taxes than wealthy households.

The real sources of wealth in America’s richest households do not come from hourly wages or yearly salaries. The bulk of their wealth lies in the assets they accumulate. As the value of those assets continues to rise, legal maneuvers allow the richest perpetually to avoid paying taxes on their gains in wealth.

https://www.chicagotribune.com/opinion/commentary/ct-opinion-illinois-income-tax-wealthy-biden-billionaire-minimum-income-tax-20220606-wklggjw7t5b33nxp7bc2uw7dri-story.html