cation fees or payments/charges, Late fees, Prohibitions against renaming of fees to avoid application of the new law, and Prohibitions against waiving or limiting of the scope of the provisions of the new law. The proposal received several amendments once in the Senate but failed to advance. The Chamber was opposed. • SB 2028 (Villanueva), an initiative to create a sales tax exemption for certain broadband equipment and materials, received a subject matter hearing in the Senate. The proposal is one that the Chamber strongly supported, given its focus on investing in broadband infrastructure and solutions. Issues to Watch • Mass Transit Revenue: The House and Senate transit leads worked tirelessly to create a package to address the fiscal cliff facing the mass transit systems in the Northeastern part of the State this session. With HB 3438 (Villivalam/Andrade) passing out of the Senate on a narrow vote, and failing to pass in the House, the legislature will need to regroup and pass a governance and revenue package later this year. Tax items that have been considered thus far include: $1.50 “environmental impact fee” or per-package delivery fee; a new ground transportation tax (rideshare tax) of 10% of a gross trip fare in Chicago, Cook, and the Collar Counties; a new Real Estate Transfer Tax in Cook County (excluding Chicago) and the collar counties of $1.50 per $500 of property value; a new EV Charging Tax imposed at the rate of $0.06 per kilowatt hour of electric vehicle power; redirection of interest earned from the Road Fund to Mass Transit Funds; and tollway surcharges. For more information on Mass Transit Gov- ernance Reform and Revenue, please refer to the Infrastructure section of the End of Session Report. • Sales tax expansion to services: A proposal that received the endorsement of several civic groups and progressive advocates alike is the expansion of the state’s sales tax to services. Claiming to generate over $2 billion, the concept of adopting a broader sales tax base (similar to Iowa or Wisconsin) has been looked at this year with serious intrigue, especially as it was related to mass transit revenue op- tions. While it is perhaps a sound tax policy to enact a broad base change to our sales tax laws, enact- ing such a significant expansion would require several years to fully implement and, at least for now, has not been formally introduced via legislation. Additionally, without lowering the sales tax rate, any sales tax expansion proposal would surely risk increasing the overall tax burden on Illinois residents and businesses alike. • Digital ads tax: A 10% digital ads tax was removed from the FY26 Revenue package at the last minute after a lack of consensus between the House and Senate—and pressure from the tech community, in- cluding the Chamber. The proposal was intended to target large tech companies. However, the impact of the new tax would reach small and mid-size businesses that rely on digital advertisements to grow their business. The proposal may be one that is re-introduced in the future. • Pensions: SB 1937 (Martwick/Kifowit) contained several Tier 2 pensions modifications, many of which went beyond the Governor’s proposed (and Chamber-supported) change to make sure the system meets the federal social security wage base threshold. Efforts by organized labor to expand Tier 2 pen- sion benefits for State employees will likely continue to make fixing Tier 2 a difficult task. • Federal tax/budget changes looming: With uncertainty in proposed and enacted foreign trade policies this year, possible reductions in federal funding to states, not to mention the expiration of the TCJA provisions at the federal level at the end of the year, the Chamber will be carefully monitoring these developing issues and any possible impact to Illinois taxpayers. 27 | END OF SESSION REPORT
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