Illinois’ Alcohol Tax Fix Recreates an Unconstitutional Scheme

• Illinois’ alcohol tax system is badly inconsistent: statutes, administrative code, and actual collections do not match.
• The mess began after a 1988 Illinois Supreme Court ruling struck down the state’s old alcohol tax scheme for violating the constitution’s uniformity clause.
• Instead of properly fixing the law, Illinois effectively kept taxing alcohol through administrative workarounds for decades.
• The new proposal would align the administrative code with existing statutes, but would recreate a tax structure similar to the one previously ruled unconstitutional.
• The proposal also broadens “spirit” definitions to include many products with added alcohol, such as ready-to-drink cocktails and some alcoholic food products.

Source: taxfoundation.org

Note that this post was (partially) written with the help of AI. It is always useful to review the original source material, and where needed to obtain (local) advice from a specialist.

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