Another Illinois High Tax Failure

"Oh when will they ever learn? Oh, when will they ever learn?" 

Never it seems.

When House Bill 3659, otherwise known as the "Amazon Tax," was first passed in January of last year, state Sen. John Cullerton (D-6th), who co-sponsored the bill with state Rep. Pat Verschoore (D-Milan), boldly stated that "Illinois would generate an additional $150 million in much-needed revenues" under the new law. Skeptical of that huge amount of money (which would have been a more than 50% increase in use tax collected), we looked at the numbers and determined it was way off.
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Following a pattern already established in other states that passed similar laws, large online retailers like Amazon.com and Overstock.com simply terminated all affiliate agreements in Illinois, opting themselves out of having to collect the tax.
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The result? An actual decrease in use tax collected of over $11 million. Numbers given to Chicagoist by the Illinois Department of Revenue show that in the period of January 2011 through June 2011, IDOR collected approximately $139 million in use tax. After the law went into effect on July 1, the total amount collected between then and the end of the year was approximately $127 million.