On December 19, 2019 the Illinois Supreme Court struck down the City of Chicago’s ordinance imposing a tax on other tobacco products. The Supreme Court sided with the plaintiff that the City’s ordinance is preempted by the Illinois Municipal Code, which states home rule municipalities that have not imposed “a tax based on the number of units of cigarettes or tobacco products before July 1, 1993,…
Annually the Civic Federation releases a report on consumer taxes in the City of Chicago. Consumer taxes are tied to the use or consumption of certain goods and services that can be charged directly to consumers through retail transactions or passed onto consumers by businesses or governments. Consumer taxes in Chicago are imposed at various levels of government including by the City of Chicago,…
UPDATE: The Cook County Board passed ordinance 20-0658, imposing a 3% cannabis retailers’ occupation tax on recreational cannabis sales within the county. The new tax will go into effect July 1, 2020 and is in addition to state and local sales taxes and other cannabis taxes, as described below. The county projects it will receive $850,000 in revenue from the tax during the last six months of 2020…
Click here to read the full report. Click here to read the press release for this analysis. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY The Civic Federation supports Mayor Lightfoot’s proposed FY2020 local funds budget of approximately $9.9 billion, but with several significant concerns. Entering FY2020 Mayor Lightfoot faced a historic $838.2 million Corporate Fund budget deficit driven largely by a $281.2 million…
The City of Chicago levies taxes on both hotel operations and occupancy. The City charges a 4.5% hotel accommodations tax and a 6.0% additional home share tax on rentals through companies such as Airbnb, as well as a 1.0% hotel operators tax. The original 4.0% home share tax was implemented in 2016 to fund supportive services related to housing for the homeless. An additional 2.0% tax was added…
The City of Chicago recently released its Budget Forecast for FY2020, which provides financial estimates for the City’s fiscal year ending on December 31, 2019 and a forecast for the next fiscal year and following two years. This is the first forecast produced by Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s administration since she took office in May 2019. The Forecast was released shortly after the Mayor’s State of…
As part of the $45 billion capital bill passed by the Illinois General Assembly in early June 2019, and pending the Governor’s signature, the State’s tax on cigarettes and e-cigarettes will increase starting on July 1. The State of Illinois tax on cigarettes will increase by $1.00 from $1.98 per pack of 20 cigarettes to $2.98 per pack. The State will also start imposing a new 15% tax on the sale…
During Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s first City Council meeting on May 29, 2019, new City Council Rules and Procedures were adopted by the Council. Also introduced was an ordinance amending the 2019 Annual Appropriation Ordinance to appropriate nearly $393,000 for audio and visual equipment to allow for the livestreaming of committee meetings. For the past several years in blog posts and its annual…
The following blog post discusses how the City of Chicago has used surplus revenue in its tax increment financing (TIF) districts since 2013. TIF is a powerful economic development tool for the City of Chicago, particularly at a time when capital and development funding from the State of Illinois and federal government has been scarce. One out of every four properties in the City is in a TIF…
On March 13, 2019 the Chicago City Council voted to approve Substitute Resolution 2018-1151. The Resolution amends Rules 49 and 55 of the City Council Rules of Order to require committee hearings to be broadcasted or aired via the Internet. The resolution is scheduled to go into effect on September 30, 2019, “contingent on the availability of funds, duly appropriated by ordinance, sufficient for…
