Sangamon Sun

Illinois state Rep. Tim Butler (R-Springfield) proudly stands by legislation put forth by Republicans that outlaws taxing retirement income.

“We look back two years ago where we were at when the governor was pushing his graduated income tax, where Treasurer Frerichs was talking about the fact that we need to tax retirement income, and we look at where we are today, I think it became very well known that the right thing to do was not to pass the graduated income tax and put a lot of uncertainty upon the people of Illinois when it came to what their tax structure was going to be,” Butler said in a recent meeting, quoted by the Sangamon Sun. “We spent a lot of time talking about that two years ago. I'm honored to have co-sponsored Rep. Demmer's resolution regarding staying away from retirement tax in Illinois, as I think many of our House Republican colleagues have done.”

Butler added that when his sister recently relocated back to Illinois she told him the advantage she feels the state has is the fact that it doesn’t tax retirement.

“Not taxing retirement income is one of the advantages we have here in the state of Illinois to try to attract people to the state of Illinois,” Butler said.

Earlier this year, Butler filed House Resolution 753 that seeks to affirm trust in the decision of Illinoisans they made to reject taxing retirement income in 2020.

The bill, which is co-sponsored by every House Republican, was originally introduced on March 24 and referred to the House Rules Committee the next day, though since then it has stalled in committee.