When Illinois’ record revenues were matched up with its record spending, there wasn’t much left over but budget chump change.
But that’s the way it went in Fiscal Year 2024 (July 1, 2024, to June 30, 2025) for Gov. J.B. Pritzker and state legislators.
State revenue mavens report that June revenues closed out the fiscal year with a $435 million increase over June 2024. That boosted revenue for the year to nearly $54 billion, a new record.
That’s a 2.7 percent increase over the $52.5 billion in tax revenue the state collected the prior fiscal year.
The big numbers don’t leave Pritzker & Co. much future fiscal breathing room, because they passed a $55 billion-plus budget for the new fiscal year that began July 1.
The state will need to set a new revenue record to ensure planned spending does not exceed projected revenues this fiscal year. That’s what it characterizes as a balanced budget.
It is not, however, officially balanced, because the state continues to intentionally under-contribute to its five public pension plans, a move that increases overall state debt.
Still, revenue growth was relatively good in June. More good months could ease the worries of officials concerned about revenue shortfalls combined with anticipated reductions in federal support.
As has been the case for most of the year, revenues from personal income taxes showed strong growth. They were up nearly 17 percent in June 2025 compared with June 2024, climbing $445 million from $2.6 billion to $3 billion.
But concerns continue over the other two of the state’s “Big 3” revenue sources — corporate income taxes and sales taxes.
Corporate income taxes slumped again compared with June 2024, falling roughly $113 million from $1 billion to $889 million. That’s a decline of more than 11 percent.
Sales taxes for June were up by 5 percent, increasing from June 2024’s $982 million to $1 billion.
Eric Noggle, revenue manager for the Legislature’s Commission on Government Forecasting & Accountability, softened the corporate-sales-tax news a bit.
“The shift of more business-related tax receipts flowing through the personal income tax instead of the corporate income tax is one of the primary factors for these declines,” he said.
Yearly corporate-income-tax receipts fell $621 million (10 percent) from $6.5 billion to $5.9 billion.
At the same time, yearly sales-tax revenues were up, but only slightly.
The state generated an $84 million increase from $11.71 billion to $11.79 billion. That’s less than 1 percent.
While noting that annual personal-income-tax revenue “performed quite well,” Noggle characterized sales-tax receipts as “generally disappointing” and said corporate income taxes “struggled.”
Revenue from the variety of state-sanctioned vices fell for the year.
Lottery revenues were down $100 million — $877 million in Fiscal Year 2023 compared with $777 million in Fiscal Year 2024. Cannabis revenues declined by $1 million year over year, $114 million to $113 million. Gambling and sports wagering were up by $28 million and $203 million, respectively.
Sluggish revenue growth is generated by a sluggish state economy. Illinois continues to trail its neighboring states in terms of economic growth and employment levels.
That has forced Pritzker & Co. to rely on a variety of tax increases, but not a general tax increase, to keep revenues in line with spending.
Other smaller revenue sources also were a mixed bag: slight increases for taxes on insurance, public utilities and investment income, and slight declines in revenue from tobacco, alcohol and estates.
