Illinois LGDF: What A Point Of Income-Tax Share Is Worth To Chicago

A single percentage point of Illinois’ income-tax sharing was worth $75.4 million to Chicago in fiscal 2025. The city received $488,086,064 that year from the Local Government Distributive Fund at a share of 6.47 percent, according to the city’s own file. The file models five other shares, from 7 to 11 percent, with a formula that scales that year’s receipts in straight proportion, so within its model each point of share is worth $75.4 million to the city and $352.0 million to Illinois’ local governments combined.

Illinois Income Tax LGDF (czxm-mzs7), 19,559 rows covering every Illinois unit of local government that received a distribution in fiscal 2012 through 2025, retrieved September 16, 2026; the file was last updated March 13, 2026 · the file’s own description: the state distributes a share of income tax receipts “on a population-weighted basis,” and its projections “are estimates that do not account for any adjustments made during internal audits that local governments may have” · the foregone-revenue figures are the file’s model, checked here on every row · all five of its hypothetical shares are shown · no government is judged and no case is made for any share

Fourteen fiscal years of Chicago’s check

Every fiscal year in the file. The share is the file’s actual_rate column; the value of a point is the year’s receipts divided by the share in points.
Fiscal year	Share of income tax distributed	Chicago received	Chicago’s slice of the statewide total	One point of share, to Chicago
2012	6%	$230,104,055	21.0%	$38.4 million
2013	6%	$252,868,454	21.0%	$42.1 million
2014	6%	$256,975,035	21.0%	$42.8 million
2015	6%	$276,461,252	21.0%	$46.1 million
2016	8%	$273,232,630	21.0%	$34.2 million
2017	8%	$255,271,682	21.0%	$31.9 million
2018	5.45%	$243,677,498	21.0%	$44.7 million
2019	5.75%	$278,699,937	20.9%	$48.5 million
2020	5.75%	$265,135,163	20.9%	$46.1 million
2021	6.06%	$350,162,100	20.9%	$57.8 million
2022	6.06%	$418,761,013	21.3%	$69.1 million
2023	6.16%	$428,015,527	21.4%	$69.5 million
2024	6.47%	$457,576,146	21.4%	$70.7 million
2025	6.47%	$488,086,064	21.4%	$75.4 million

Chicago’s check more than doubled across the file, from $230,104,055 in fiscal 2012 to $488,086,064 in fiscal 2025 — 2.12 times as much — while the share itself ended barely above where it began, 6 percent then and 6.47 percent now. In between it rose to 8 percent for fiscal 2016 and 2017, fell to 5.45 percent in fiscal 2018 and climbed back by stages. Through all of it Chicago’s slice of the statewide total stayed between 20.9 and 21.4 percent, consistent with the population weighting the file’s description names. Dividing the statewide total by the share gives the pool the model works from — about $18.3 billion in fiscal 2012 and $35.2 billion in fiscal 2025 — and the city’s growth splits cleanly into three multipliers: the pool grew 1.93 times, the share 1.08 times and Chicago’s slice 1.02 times, which multiply to the 2.12. Most of the growth is the pool, and why the pool grew is not in the file.

The file’s “foregone revenue” columns, summed across all fourteen years. Positive means the hypothetical share would have paid more than the actual one.
Hypothetical share	Chicago, fiscal 2012–2025	All Illinois local governments, fiscal 2012–2025
7 percent	$545,969,253	$2,585,523,080
8 percent	$1,263,254,369	$5,978,399,089
9 percent	$1,980,539,484	$9,371,275,097
10 percent	$2,697,824,600	$12,764,151,106
11 percent	$3,415,109,715	$16,157,027,115

The file carries five hypothetical shares, from 7 to 11 percent, and a “foregone revenue” figure for each — its word. Summed over fourteen years, the model puts Chicago’s difference at $546.0 million at a 7 percent share and $2.70 billion at 10 percent; for every local government together, $2.59 billion and $12.76 billion. The mechanics matter more than any one of those numbers. Checked on all 19,559 rows, every figure is the year’s actual receipts scaled to the hypothetical share — so the model holds the size of the state’s income-tax pool fixed and changes only the slice. That is why the 7 percent column turns negative in fiscal 2016 and 2017, when the actual share was 8, and why the model cannot say what a different share would have done to the state’s own budget.

Chicago against the rest of Illinois

The ten largest fiscal 2025 distributions in the file, of 1,394 governments that received one.
Recipient, fiscal 2025	Received	Share of the statewide total
Chicago	$488,086,064	21.4%
Aurora	$32,085,791	1.4%
Joliet	$26,722,225	1.2%
Naperville	$26,576,139	1.2%
Rockford	$26,418,858	1.2%
Elgin	$20,401,639	0.9%
Springfield	$20,330,018	0.9%
Peoria	$20,108,935	0.9%
Cook County government	$18,654,836	0.8%
Will County government	$18,293,176	0.8%

Fiscal 2025 distributions went to 1,394 governments, 102 of them county governments, and together came to $2,277,271,047 — up from $1,095,183,972 in fiscal 2012. Chicago’s $488.1 million is larger than the next nine recipients combined, which is $209.6 million. The gap shows up in the value of a point too: to Aurora, the second-largest recipient, a point of share was worth about $4.96 million in fiscal 2025, against Chicago’s $75.4 million.

What the file confirms, and what it cannot tell you

Confirmed, as filed: what each unit of local government received in each fiscal year, the share in effect that year, and the model’s difference at each hypothetical share. The file does not show: what any different share would have done to the state’s budget or to its income-tax rate, since the model holds the pool fixed; any adjustment made during internal audits that local governments may have, which the file says its estimates leave out; how any government spent the money; or why the share moved when it did.

Where the record lives

The LGDF file sits on the city’s data portal, where it was last updated March 13, 2026; its description names the Illinois Department of Revenue’s disbursement records as the model’s source. Every figure here was computed from the file as retrieved on September 16, 2026.

The bottom line

By the city’s own file, Chicago received $488.1 million from Illinois’ income-tax sharing in fiscal 2025 — 21.4 percent of the statewide total, at a share of 6.47 percent — and $4.48 billion across fourteen years. Within the file’s model a point of share was worth $75.4 million to the city in fiscal 2025 and $352.0 million to Illinois’ local governments together, and every multi-year figure the model produces is built the same way — each year’s own point value multiplied by the difference in share — with that year’s pool held where it was.

Two more questions the file can answer

When was the share highest? At 8 percent in fiscal 2016 and 2017, when Chicago received $273,232,630 and $255,271,682. And how steady is the list of recipients? Of 1,403 government names in the file, 1,388 appear in all fourteen years.

Source: the city’s Illinois Income Tax LGDF file (czxm-mzs7): 19,559 rows, fiscal 2012 through 2025, retrieved September 16, 2026 and read whole.
The model, checked: for every row and all five hypothetical shares, the file’s foregone revenue equals the year’s receipts times the hypothetical share divided by the actual share, minus the receipts, to well under a cent. A percentage point is therefore worth the receipts divided by the actual share in points, and that is how the point values here are computed.
What the model holds fixed: each year’s pool of income-tax receipts. It prices a different slice of the same pool; it does not model a different pool.
Estimates: the file’s description says its figures do not account for adjustments made during internal audits that local governments may have.
Not here: no case made for any share, no judgment of any government, and no claim about state budget decisions, which the file does not record.

Computed by KCM Desk from the city’s Illinois income tax LGDF file, retrieved September 16, 2026. Human-guided and edited — about this desk. If you spot an error, corrections come first.