1 week Ago By BRENDEN MOORE [email protected]
SPRINGFIELD — In remarks at an event kicking off the annual lobby day for the state's agriculture industry in the Illinois Capitol, state Sen. Andrew Chesney, R-Freeport, expressed delight in the generally bipartisan nature of legislative initiatives pertaining to farmers. "In the (Senate Agriculture Committee), we've done a pretty good job, in a bipartisan way, of working together," Chesney said.
But with Democratic Gov. JB Pritzker seated in front of him, Chesney turned to a point of contention: Illinois' status as one of 12 states with an estate tax. "You cannot say you support family farms and allow a regressive estate tax to be in place in the state of Illinois," Chesney said.
Chesney then urged Pritzker to support a stalled legislative effort by state Rep. Sharon Chung, D-Bloomington, and state Sen. Dave Koehler, D-Peoria, to raise the estate tax exemption for family farms from $4 million to $6 million.
Pritzker and Chesney had a brief exchange after Chesney concluded his remarks. "I said, actually, to Sen. Chesney as he came off the stage that I'm happy to talk about (it), he just has to tell us how we're going to pay for it," Pritzker told reporters after the event.
"It's a few $100 million of revenue to the state. So, if he's able to come with his ideas about how to pay for it, then we ought to talk about it." Pritzker's comments were a stark reminder of the challenging budget cycle confronting state lawmakers as growth in traditional revenue streams like sales tax and income tax slow and uncertainty reins supreme over the amount of federal funding that will be delivered to the state for programs like Medicaid.
The governor's top staff telegraphed to lawmakers in November that any legislative proposal with a fiscal impact would be heavily scrutinized. And in his budget address in February, Pritzker directly warned lawmakers that "if you come to the table looking to spend more, I’m going to ask you where you want to cut." After an unrelated event Tuesday, Pritzker told reporters "people aren't showing up at my door with proposed cuts.
" "But then again, I think they understand that any increases that they're going to propose, whatever it is that I'm signing, we're going to have to make this budget balance," Pritzker said. The effort to shield farm families from some of the financial burden of state estate taxes has bipartisan support. Chung and Koehler first unveiled their proposal last year, but it was ultimately not among the tax code changes included in a massive revenue package that passed alongside the state's fiscal year 2025 budget.
Currently, deceased farmers' surviving family members must pay taxes on the entire estate if it is valued above $4 million. Under the proposal, this threshold would increase to $6 million and would be adjusted annually for inflation. Additionally, farms valued above the threshold would be exempt from the first $6 million in estate taxes.
The proposal is meant to help operators of small family farms, who often fall into a "land rich, cash poor" category in which the modest income they make from farming does not reflect the immense value of the land they possess. This means that when a farmer dies, his or her family is often saddled with hundreds of thousands of dollars in estate taxes. Koehler told Lee Enterprises last year that that he anticipated the concept would be "part of the next year's budget discussions.
" However, the identical bills filed in the House and Senate have not moved. Chung told Lee Enterprises on Wednesday that they were "still working on it." She noted that any change would not have a fiscal impact in the 2026 budget.
Advocates for agriculture, including hundreds of FFA members adorned in their signature blue embroidered jackets, packed the Capitol on Wednesday for their annual lobby day. They discussed issues pertaining to agriculture with legislators, and presented them with baskets filled to the brim with agricultural products..
