Bill would allow third party to access Illinois Department of Revenue data

SPRINGFIELD, Ill. (WICS) — Business coalitions from across the state are urging lawmakers to oppose a bill that would allow a third party to easily access sales tax information from the Illinois Department of Revenue.

House Bill 2717 would give certain consulting companies direct access to the Illinois Department of Revenue's data.

Those companies would then use their access to get a local business’s confidential information.

"Anyone could potentially reverse engineer that to find out what your total sales are," said Rob Karr, president of the Illinois Merchant Association.

Municipalities want to use these consulting companies to find money that was missed by the Department of Revenue.

The consulting companies could also determine if a business is within the right city limits. This is helpful because if they are labeled under the wrong city limits the sales tax from the business could be going elsewhere.

"We have seen several instances where they have not done it correctly," Rep. Chris Welch, D-Westchester, said. "The municipalities all over the state have suddenly found money that belongs to them; The City of Springfield being one of them."

Business owners say that the Illinois Department of Revenue already has services like this available to the city free of charge, but the bill’s sponsor says the department has made mistakes before.

Rep. Welch also says this bill wouldn’t put anyone's personal information at risk.

Consulting companies would earn a percentage of the money they found from errors.

The money used to pay those third-party companies could be given to the cities to provide services for the community.

This bill could be voted on sometime before Friday.