Broken pieces

~ susie

Les Sampou was a well-known Boston folk and blues musician and then she did a sudden turnaround, releasing a killer rock album. (Broken Pieces is one of my favorite songs from it.) But it almost killed her career! The blues and folk stations would no longer play her songs and she stopped getting festival gigs — after years of supporting herself with her music. She was so proud of this album, but without air play, it was going nowhere. She couldn’t tour to support it because she didn’t have the money to hire a band. The last I heard, she went back to playing blues.

Illinois legislators considering changes to the state’s estate tax

~ susie
Photo by Ozzie Stern on Unsplash

Illinois legislators are considering making major changes to Illinois’ estate tax. Two bills are currently being debated in the Illinois House. One would adjust the tax threshold to match that at the federal level. The other would remove it completely.


An estate tax is a tax someone must pay for any inheritance they receive. The problem some legislators see with this is that it is driving some families out of business, particularly farmers. Once a farmer passes away, it is very common for them to leave the family farm to close loved ones. Unfortunately, those loved ones have to pay an estate tax on that land and sometimes, that tax is thousands of dollars.

Many people simply cannot afford this and so, they end up selling off large pieces of equipment or even a portion of the land just to keep some of the farm in the family. This is what some legislators think is unfair, and why they want to do away with the tax altogether. Others look at the $254 million in state revenues from the estate tax in 2017 and say it is a move Illinois cannot afford to make.

“I do not understand why we are placing the state’s budget over the needs of our people,” says Steve Novak of Estate & Probate Legal Group. “Sometimes the tax is as high as 16 percent. Even on a small farm that is worth only $100,000, that leaves family members potentially still paying $16,000 in estate tax. It is too much to ask.”

Perhaps it is. So, will legislators be able to come to an agreement? They may, but it may not be on the bill that would eliminate the tax altogether. More likely, they will agree on House Bill 0820, which does not eliminate the tax, but it does make it applicable to only certain estates. This bill would raise the tax threshold to the federal level of $11.4 million. That is a far jump from Illinois’ current threshold of $4 million.

Under these thresholds, an estate would need to be worth a minimum of the threshold mark before being subject to estate taxes. This may be the best hope Illinois has for changing the estate tax. While it would not eliminate it, it would make it easier for those with smaller farms and other property to inherit the asset without depleting their savings in order to get it.