How Illinois Organizers Won a New Tax on Tech Giants

"We were able to talk to people about losing SNAP, losing healthcare or healthcare costs going up, losing housing programs, and connecting all of these to, at first, an authoritarian federal regime, and then a set of corporations that were pillars of support for that regime, that profit from a taxation policy that is easy on them." -- Carlos Fernandez, Exec. Dir. of Grassroots Collaborative

Unlock this inspiring story for only $4 a month!

FEATURING CARLOS FERNANDEZ - Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker in June of this year signed a bill into law that slaps a tax on tech companies’ ad revenues. The movement that led to SB 3019 was many months in the making and involved a coalition of grassroots organizations working to mitigate the damage of the federal government’s tax cuts on corporations and cutting of social services. When enacted, this tax is expected to bring in $800 million in revenues for Illinois. 

Carlos Fernandez is the Executive Director of Grassroots Collaborative, a coalition of Chicago labor and community organizations who have worked together for racial and economic justice for over 25 years. He spoke with Sonali Kolhatkar about the new tax.

ROUGH TRANSCRIPT:

Sonali Kolhatkar: I explained in very broad terms what the tax is, but why don't you tell me? You're obviously a lot more familiar with it than I am. What exactly is this tax? When will it get enacted? 

Carlos Fernandez: Well, there's a couple of scenarios for when, but as far as the what, this is a tax on the digital advertising revenues of the largest corporations that sell digital advertising. So, the great majority of this would be paid by Alphabet, which is the parent company of Google, Meta, parent company of Facebook, Amazon, which does a lot of digital advertising, and similar corporations that sell to other corporations mostly, but to all sorts of businesses and individuals, the ability to advertise on their platforms, Instagram or what have you, Google Search. 

And so in Illinois, most services are not taxed, and so this is a tax on the revenue that those companies generate. So, whatever portion. I'm forgetting right now the exact. It's a small amount. It's a small percentage of every dollar that they generate. So, it really is only significant for those companies that sell millions or hundreds of millions in advertising. And it's only on their revenue in Illinois.