Village of Bethalto Council Meeting
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BETHALTO – Bethalto is the latest local municipality to approve the replacement of an expiring state-level sales tax on groceries with the village’s own 1% grocery tax, starting next year.
Village Board members unanimously approved an ordinance at this week’s meeting which “implements a 1% grocery sales tax effective Jan. 1, 2026, to replace the same tax(es) that are to be discontinued by the State of Illinois on that date.”
Since it was first imposed in 1990, the State of Illinois sent 100% of the proceeds collected from the 1% grocery tax directly back to local municipalities. In 2024, the Illinois General Assembly voted to eliminate the grocery tax and set it to expire in 2026, which also eliminated a major source of revenue for communities across Illinois.
State legislators later passed a law allowing municipalities to implement their own locally collected grocery taxes to offset the loss in state revenue. This would not amount to a sales tax increase, since the local tax would be replacing an expiring state tax of the same 1% rate.
Several communities have since approved their own local grocery taxes ahead of the Oct. 1, 2025 deadline, allowing them to start collecting these taxes starting on Jan. 1, 2026. These include Alton, Belleville, Edwardsville, Glen Carbon, Jerseyville, and Wood River.
After passing a general sales tax increase earlier this year as an alternative to replacing the grocery tax, the Godfrey Village Board approved an ordinance to also replace the expiring grocery tax, which was then vetoed by Mayor Mike McCormick, citing concerns of overtaxing residents.
Bethalto’s 5-0 approval of the replacement grocery tax comes 20 days before the Oct. 1, 2025 deadline for the village to begin collecting the tax in 2026. A full recording of the Sept. 8, 2025 Bethalto Village Board meeting is available at the top of this story or on Riverbender.com/video.
