Eddie Lampert is angling for a big tax break in states across the nation, including New Jersey.

The penny-pinching billionaire — who as chairman of Sears Holdings has threatened to move the floundering retailer’s headquarters out of Illinois for tax reasons — is considering a corporate move to one of at least seven US states as well as Washington, DC, sources said.

New Jersey, in addition to being littered with vacant corporate campuses, would be just a short plane or helicopter flight away from Lampert’s hedge fund, ESL Investments in Greenwich, Conn., insiders noted.

A tax break worth a reported $240 million — which Sears won nearly 20 years ago for moving its headquarters to Hoffman Estates, Ill., from the former Sears Tower in downtown Chicago — is set to expire next year.

“We do owe it to our associates and shareholders to consider options and alternatives,” Sears said in a statement.

In the same statement, however, the retailer appears to contradict itself, saying, “speculation about whether Sears will remain in Hoffman Estates is not fair to our associates, particularly so early in this process.”

One source close to the retailer said that Sears, by going public with its efforts to move, is “terrorizing more than 6,000 people who work at headquarters.”

Those Sears employees, who currently occupy a 2.4-million-square-foot campus, have good reason to be worried. In addition to a tax break, the source said, Lampert “eagerly anticipates the opportunity of firing thousands of people; the only way to keep this puppy alive is by continuing to sell things off and cut expenses.”

That could work against Sears as it bargains with other states, as “It’s not clear there’s going to be a company in five or 10 years,” according to a source.

Separately yesterday, Fitch Ratings downgraded Sears debt, saying it was worried about a “magnitude of decline in profitability and the lack of visibility to turn around operations.”