Employ Illinois    

[MARCH 9, 2004]  SPRINGFIELD -- A creative new approach to creating jobs in areas of highest unemployment cleared its first major hurdle in the Illinois House March 3, according to the bill's chief sponsor, Rep. Bill Mitchell, R-Forsyth.

"Employ Illinois is a job renewal program that will promote business expansion in downstate communities that are suffering from high unemployment, population loss and high poverty," said Mitchell. "This proposal is the cornerstone of a package of bills I introduced as the result of hearings held this past summer and fall by the House Republican Rural Economic Development Task Force, which I chaired. I am pleased my colleagues have agreed to allow this bill to advance."

House Bill 6679 creates the Employ Illinois Job Renewal Act. The legislation allows for the creation of 10 job renewal zones and 10 agricultural zones in downstate Illinois. Businesses located in these zones would qualify for exemptions from the following state taxes: corporate income tax, the personal property tax replacement income tax and the state's portion of the sales tax.

The zones must be located in a county that has fewer than 200,000 residents and has experienced unemployment rates over the past five years that are higher than at least 75 percent of all local government entities. These requirements will ensure that the zones will be located in the most economically depressed areas of the state.

[News release from Rep. Bill Mitchell]