Taxing retirement income, something Illinois doesn’t currently do, has become a political talking point in the argument over the progressive tax ballot initiative. But, a financial industry advocate warns about the hit to Illinois residents’ 401(k) plans that would stem from a different proposal.
Taxing financial transactions has found its way back into the conversation in a number of cities and states as a way to shore up budgets battered by COVID-19 shutdowns. While the amounts are different, the premise of placing a fee on each trade conducted in a city or state, remains the same.
The Modern Markets Initiative, an industry group representing financial trading institutions, estimates that a financial transaction tax would cost the average Illinoisan up to $$22,452.01 from their retirement fund over 40 years. The group said the tax would cost the average retirement account $144.90 per year.
“There have been, for many years, competing legislation to tax financial transactions at various levels as a way to raise revenue,” said Kirsten Wegner, CEO of Modern Markets Initiative. “Illinois has been looking at a financial transaction tax for many, many, years. That is nothing new there. I think Illinois has faced the same pressures that many states are facing right now. Whether it’s people saving through their [Bright Start] 529 plan, their 401(k) plan, or their pension fund, these taxes are ultimately passed on to the end-user.”
Taxpayers would also take a hit in the publicly-funded pensions they’re responsible for funding. MMI estimates a financial transaction tax in Illinois would cost the Illinois Municipal Retirement Fund, a taxpayer-funded pension system responsible for paying thousands of municipal employees, $12.20 billion over 3 decades if the tax was 50 basis points per trade.
Illinois State Rep. Mary Flowers, D-Chicago, has introduced multiple bills that would place a tax on financial transactions, saying it would raise billions of dollars for the state annually.
During a hearing on one of her measures, CME Group President Terry Duffy made clear that his trading floor was not rooted in place on LaSalle Street in Chicago and could easily move.
“It would have been difficult for me to go to the state legislature and say, ‘You know what, I’m going to move and I gotta take 6,000 traders with me and disrupt their families.’ That’s not the case anymore,” Chicago Mercantile Exchange President Terry Duffy said in 2018, referring to CME’s transition to online trading. “We sold our data center. We sold everything we have in agreement with that data center. They own 22 other data centers in the United States. They could move us into any one of them.”
Wegner corroborated Duffy’s claim.
“Market participants would have no choice but to relocate,” she said.
