Illinois Tax and Fiscal Update

Please join us for a technical meeting on Thursday the 22nd with Carol S. Portman, who will be presenting an "Illinois Tax and Fiscal Update". The Governor is providing his budget update the week, just prior to her speaking at this meeting, so her material will have recent perspective.

Carol Shuman Portman has been the President of the Taxpayers’ Federation of Illinois since January 2013.  Prior to joining TFI in the fall of 2012, she was Assistant General Counsel – Tax with Sears Holdings Corporation for 12 years, where she was responsible for providing legal support on all state and local tax matters nationwide.  Ms. Portman held similar in-house corporate tax counsel positions with Ameritech (now AT&T) and Waste Management Corporation.  Her first legal experience in the state and local tax area was in the Chicago office of McDermott, Will & Emery.  A former chair of TFI, Ms. Portman served on the Board of Trustees from 2000 - 2012, and the Executive Committee from 2002 - 2012.  Originally from Sullivan, Illinois, Carol’s first exposure to Illinois government and fiscal policy came at an early age—her father, Charles W. Shuman, was a delegate to the 1970 Illinois Constitutional Convention and her grandfather, Charles B. Shuman, was president of the Illinois Farm Bureau and the America Farm Bureau Federation.  She is a 1984 graduate of the University of Illinois and received her law degree in 1987 from the University of Michigan Law School.