The Illinois Farm Bureau was joined by a bipartisan group of lawmakers today in Bloomington to unveil new legislation to improve Illinois’ estate tax
At the Bloomington home office of the farm bureau, House Bill 4600 was introduced as a way to protect heritage farms by updating the tax code.
The bipartisan piece of legislation would make the calculation of the state Death Tax Credit an exemption of $6 million rather than an exclusion amount at $4 million, and would provide that the exemption would be adjusted each year according to the Consumer Price Index. It would also make language changes for spouses and who could be considered a qualified heir.
94th District Deputy House Republican leader Norine Hammond of Macomb recognized how long its taken to get a bipartisan agreement in place on the issue: “This didn’t happen last night. This didn’t happen within the last week or the last month. This has been a conversation that’s been going on with individuals and industry groups for many years. Being here today is absolutely the turning point that we were all working towards. We have to see it to the finish line. But, here today, we can stand up and say we are promoting the number one industry in the State of Illinois – agriculture, and protecting our family farms.”
The bill was chiefly sponsored by 91st District Democrat Sharon Chung of Bloomington. It has been referred to the House Rules Committee for consideration.