UPDATE, 10:20 p.m. - This bill hasn’t been taken up in the House, and is apparently dead.

SPRINGFIELD, Ill. - An Illinois House committee this morning approved a tax hike bill that would boost the state’s income tax rate to 5 percent (it’s currently 3 percent) as a means of upping education funding and plugging the state’s budget deficit. It passed the Senate yesterday and now goes to the full House.

If it passes, Gov. Pat Quinn will sign it. He testified for it in the committee this morning, in a meeting packed with labor advocates, human-services workers and others who are demanding a tax hike as a means of avoiding state service cuts.

In addition to upping the income tax, the bill (HB174) would also increase the personal exemption level to $3,000 per person, meaning that’s how much you could take off your taxable income for each person in your family (That level is currently at $2,000 per person). And it would increase the current 5 percent refund that Illinoisans get for their property tax bills, up to 10 percent.

Here’s a back-of-the-envelope example of what it would mean for a family of four with a taxable income of $50,000 and paying $1,000 a year in property taxes:

- Currently, that family pays about $1,210 in the sate income tax ($50,000, minus $8,000 for personal exemptions, times the 3 percent flat tax equals $1,260, minus $50 for the property tax giveback.)

- The same family under the new proposal would pay about $590 more, or a total of $1,800 ($50,000 minus $12,000 in personal exemptions, times 5 percent flat-tax, minus $100 for the property-tax giveback).

In addition, the bill would expand the state’s sales tax to collect it for services like dog grooming, drycleaning and television cable services. (Here’s the list)

I predicted here yesterday that this thing was DOA in the House (oops). I based that on the fact that it’s a higher increase than Quinn’s own 4.5 percent tax proposal that’s been stalled there. I wasn’t alone; Quinn himself, when asked yesterday about the new bill, dismissively waved it away, saying he wanted to focus on pushing his own proposal, yet this morning he was imploring committee member to “seize history” by passing the new one.

Amazing what a looming deadline will do (they have to complete the budget by tonight’s midnight adjournment of the Legislature, or things get truly ugly).

One reason some lawmakers might be willing to support the new, higher tax is that it would bring in significantly more money than Quinn’s original plan, with more of it earmarked for schools.