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“There's a lot of constituents and other folks that have
interests that think this is going to raise revenue and tax them
around $60 million or more,” Cabello told The Center Square.
The revenue package signed by Gov. J.B. Pritzker last week
includes a 0.2% tax on the value of digital assets held or
transacted by Illinois residents.
Peter Van Valkenburgh, executive director of Coin Center, said
there are huge uncertainties about the tax for normal people in
Illinois.
“Even just moving your digital assets from one wallet that you
control to another because you want to have control of your
finances instead of trusting a bank, even that might be a
taxable event under this bill, which is kind of nuts,” Van
Valkenburgh told The Center Square.
Both Cabello and Van Valkenburgh said it was not clear which
transactions would be taxed.
“Is it any business transferring a digital asset on behalf of a
customer? We’ve got a restaurant here in Machesney Park called
Steak and Shake that takes cryptocurrency. Does it count for
that?”
The revenue package signed last week also includes a social
media platform fee that was proposed by the governor.
“These predatory social media platforms that collect all our
data and monetize it, a technological solution to that is
peer-to-peer transactions on crypto,” Van Valkenburgh said.
Van Valkenburgh said taxing big tech would be better than
imposing a tax on peer-to-peer transactions.
“We think it's an inappropriate tax. It's going to drive a lot
of potential consumer beneficial innovation out of Illinois,”
Van Valkenburgh said.
The Crypto Council for Innovation said Illinois’ digital asset
tax would be the most punitive in the country.
“So the Trump administration is moving crypto, Bitcoin, all that
stuff forward, and J.B. Pritzker has to be against it, so this
is his answer of doing everything opposite of what the president
is doing,” Cabello said.
The Machesney Park Republican expressed concern that the tax
would be handled by the Illinois Department of Revenue instead
of the Department of Financial and Professional Regulation.
Cabello’s HB 5798 would immediately repeal the tax, which is
scheduled to take effect along with other state revenue measures
on July 1.
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