Illinois sales tax rules and regulations are supervised and adopted by the Illinois Department of Revenue (IDOR). The IDOR also has the responsibility of collection of taxes for local and state governments in Illinois.
In Illinois, the state sales tax is imposed on three types of products and they are the following:
Vehicles
Food and prescription and non-prescription medicines
Other forms of general merchandise
For the purchase of food, medical appliances, medicines and other qualified items, the sales tax is imposed at 1% base rate. For vehicles or products, which need registration, the sales tax is imposed at 6.25% base rate. For other types of general merchandise, which include selling of the majority of personal tangible properties like soft drinks, alcoholic beverages, cooked food or food bought from restaurants, computer software (canned or prewritten), photo processing, telephone calling cards (prepaid), spare parts and other accessories that are sold or marketed in concurrence to provision of a service, the sales tax is imposed at 6.25% base rate.
Local taxes are also applicable in the state of Illinois; however, the amount of local sales tax is dependent on the jurisdiction or area. The communities in the state of Illinois also have the authority to impose additional sales taxes.
Following are some selected sales tax rates that are applicable in the state of Illinois:
| City |
County |
Sales tax rate |
| Edwardsville |
Madison |
6.60% |
| Belleville |
St. Clair |
7.5% |
| Jerseyville |
Jersey |
6.75% |
| Carlyle |
Clinton |
6.25% |
Source: http://www.stlrcga.org/x490.xml
The following items are exempted from payment of sales tax in Illinois:
- Production equipments like computers and spare parts, which are utilized to operate production equipments, are exempted from sales tax in Illinois.
- Buying of agricultural equipments is exempted from sales tax.
- Pollution control devices sold for prevention or reduction of water and air pollution are exempted from sales tax.
- For prescription and foods (food which is sold for the purpose of consumption away from premises), tax is specifically imposed at the rate of 1%.
Contact Details:
Illinois Department of Revenue
Willard Ice Building
101 West Jefferson Street
Springfield, Illinois 62702
Tel: 1 800-732-8866
1 217-782-3336