Illinois Use Tax is a sales tax that you, as the purchaser, owe on items that you buy for use in Illinois. If the seller does not collect this tax, you must pay it to the Illinois Department of Revenue yourself. The most common purchases on which the seller does not collect Illinois Use Tax are those made via the internet, from a mail order catalog, or made when traveling outside Illinois.
If you owe $600 or less in Use Tax, you may use form IL-1040 to report and pay the tax rather than filing a separate Illinois Use Tax Return (Form ST-44). You must pay this tax if the items you bought are taxable in Illinois, you used or consumed these items in Illinois, and when you purchased the items you either did not pay any sales tax to the seller or paid sales tax at less than Illinois' Use Tax rates of 6.25% for general merchandise and 1% for food and drugs.
To determine the Illinois Use Tax you owe, check your records to see if you were charged tax on internet, mail order, or other out-of-state purchases. If your records are incomplete, Illinois Dept. of Revenue has provided a Use Tax worksheet to calculate your use tax based on your adjusted gross income (AGI). Using this chart results in use tax of about .06% of your AGI.
The state has reported that over $11 million was collected from the Use Tax line on the 2010 IL-1040.
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