Peek At Quinn's Budget Shows Higher Cigarette, License Plate Fees

By Marcus Gilmer in News on Mar 17, 2009 2:40PM

While Governor Pat Quinn won't unveil his complete budget until tomorrow, bits and pieces are starting to leak out as the Sun-Times got a hold of a "blueprint" of his plan. We already know about the controversial income tax hike he's planning, but two more tax hikes he's looking at are also raising eyebrows. The first is price of the registration fee for state license plate stickers, which currently cost $78. Quinn wants to raise the price on those by $20. Quinn is also exploring raising cigarette taxes from an existing $0.98 per pack to almost $2.00 a pack within two years.

One more aspect of the income tax hike that may stir some trouble for Quinn:

And in an area likely to generate heated opposition from cities, Quinn wants to withhold the 10 percent stake municipalities would expect to see in additional revenues from an income-tax increase.

"It's going to be very contentious for most cities," said Roger Huebner, general counsel for the Illinois Municipal League.

We'll cover Quinn's speech as it happens tomorrow. [Sun-Times]