Report: Illinois’ Budget Pickle To Cost Wisconsin $51 Million

Illinois’ budget problems will cost Wisconsin an extra 51-million dollars in the next two years. Illinois is raising an extra five-billion dollars in taxes to catch up on its pension obligations to government retirees — and the Wisconsin Legislative Fiscal Bureau says the Badger State will have to give an extra 51-million to Illinois to maintain a long time income tax reciprocity agreement. It allows residents who live in one state and work in the other to file just one state tax return — and Wisconsin pays Illinois to equalize the tax rates, since more Wisconsinites work in Illinois than the other way around. The extra tax obligation is the last thing Wisconsin Republicans wanted to hear, as they struggle to agree on school and highway funding for a new state budget that was supposed to take effect July first. Senate G-O-P leader Scott Fitzgerald says it will make that task harder.