The state of Illinois announced Tuesday (Jan. 8, 2019) that 1099G forms are out for those people who received Unemployment Insurance benefits in 2018.

But that’s not the only piece of good news in the Illinois Department of Employment Security news release.

According to IDES, the state shelled out less for unemployment checks than it did a year ago, and businesses paid less in unemployment Insurance benefits.

Those who opted to receive theirs electronically should have received an email last Friday. IDES plans to mail out the paper forms by Jan. 25, but due in part of the government shutdown, the Internal Revenue Service has not announced when it will start accepting returns.

In 2018, IDES paid more than $1.73 billion in Unemployment Insurance benefits to 346,882 individuals who lost work through no fault of their own. Both of those numbers are lower than 2017, when 372,214 people received $1.9 billion in UI benefits.

The UI Trust Fund is the mechanism that pays for unemployment benefits for those workers laid off through no fault of their own. The taxes flow into the UI Trust Fund and are distributed to displaced workers through IDES as their claims are processed.

Taxes will be lower in 2019 for more than 92 percent of the state’s employers, with businesses scheduled to pay $1.66 billion in UI taxes this year.

In 2012, Illinois businesses paid $3.36 billion in UI taxes, which means the state has lowered the tax by more than 50 percent over the last seven years.

There were 238,735 individuals who chose to receive their 1009G form electronically (255,578 in 2017) and 108,147 who are scheduled to receive theirs by paper (116,636 in 2017).

SOURCE: state of Illinois news release