By Eric Reyes
As a minority attorney in Illinois, I am appalled at our state government’s attack on small and family businesses. As we continue to recover from COVID-19, historic increases in inflation, a labor shortage, and ongoing supply chain bottlenecks, our lawmakers have piled on even more costs for struggling small businesses, many of which are minority-owned.
For starters, business taxes increased by a whopping $655 million this year--and they aren’t even allowed to realize tax deductions due to losses. As a proud voice for the underrepresented and disadvantaged in our society, this is shocking, considering most working families and small businesses are worse off right now than they were two years ago.
Lawmakers are also still pushing radical minimum wage increases. Despite the fact that Illinois small businesses are responsible for 60 percent of our state’s net job creation, our leaders want to further increase employers’ costs when they are at their most vulnerable. Again, the result of this would be more lost jobs and businesses leaving the state or closing their doors for good.
Regardless of where you stand on these issues, we should all agree that continuing to push for more taxes and other costs on businesses is out-of-touch at best. What employers and working families need is support from the state until we are fully recovered from the ongoing health and economic crises.
Eric Reyes is managing attorney for Reyes Law Group in Rock Island.
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