The Cook County Circuit Court recently ruled that the City of Chicago cannot tax other tobacco products according to Illinois state law. The City’s home rule tax on these products was expected to bring in $6.0 million in revenue. Other tobacco products (OTP) include the following non-cigarette tobacco products: Cigars; Pipe Tobacco; Smokeless Tobacco; and Smoking Tobacco. The Chicago City Council adopted an Other Tobacco Products (OTP) Tax Ordinance on March 16, 2016 and the tax was…
Click here to read this issue brief. This annual brief provides a compilation of selected consumer taxes, including rates and descriptions, in place in the City of Chicago as of July 1, 2017. The taxes in this report are grouped under the following categories: sales taxes, tobacco-related taxes, beverage-related taxes, utility-related taxes, accommodations-related taxes, transportation-related taxes and other taxes.
Annually the Civic Federation releases a report on consumer taxes in the City of Chicago. Consumer taxes are charges for the consumption of goods or services and can be charged directly to consumers through retail transactions or passed onto consumers by businesses. This blog highlights the new consumer taxes that have been approved in the past year which go into effect in 2017, as well as changes to several taxes that were approved in 2016. …
Click here to read the full report. This annual report compares estimated effective property tax rates in the six-county region of northeastern Illinois between 2005 and 2014, the last year for which data are available. Among the 12 selected Cook County communities, the Civic Federation found Harvey had the highest 2014 effective tax rate for residential properties at 7.71% in tax year 2014, and Chicago had the lowest effective tax rate for residential property at 1.56% and the…
The following are the five most read posts presented by the Civic Federation blog in 2016. These posts examine issues ranging from local government consolidation to pension funding reform. Cook County Electorate to Vote on Referendum to Merge the Recorder of Deeds with the County Clerk July 20, 2016 This post highlights an initiative long supported by the Civic Federation to merge the offices of the Cook County Clerk and the Cook County Recorder of Deeds. On June 29, 2016 the Cook…
2017 Civic Federation Legislative Priorities The Civic Federation's legislative priorities for 2017 include public employee pension reforms, consolidation of local government units in Illinois, expanding the sales tax base while controlling spending, creation of a Local Government Protection Authority, requiring the State of Illinois to build a rainy day fund, development and implementation of a capital improvement plan and extending the …
The Civic Federation supports the proposed FY2017 City of Chicago budget of $8.2 billion because it continues to work toward addressing the City’s unfunded pension liabilities and makes significant improvements over past financial practices. Despite setbacks due to recent court rulings, all four City funds now have proposed dedicated funding sources. As mentioned in the full report, Mayor Emanuel has committed to ending the use of “scoop and toss” debt refinancing by 2019. The FY2017 budget…
On October 11, 2016, Mayor Rahm Emanuel presented his recommended FY2017 budget to the Chicago City Council. Included in the Mayor’s recommended budget for FY2017 is a proposal to impose a new $0.07 tax on disposable plastic and paper bags provided by merchants to customers. Stores would be responsible for collecting the tax but would then remit $0.05 per bag to the City and keep $0.02. The Mayor’s budget proposal projects that the tax will generate approximately $12.9 million in FY2017 of…
Decisions by two of the largest State of Illinois pension funds to reduce their expected rates of return on investment have garnered headlines, but they were not the only funds to change their assumptions recently. On May 11, 2016, the Retirement Board for the Firemen’s Annuity and Benefit Fund of Chicago voted to reduce the expected rate of return on investment for the fund to 7.5% from 8.0%, in addition to changes to the inflation and wage inflation assumptions. Together the changes…
The City of Chicago recently released its mid-year Annual Financial Analysis for 2016, which provides financial estimates for the City’s fiscal year ending on December 31, 2016 and a forecast for the next fiscal year. The analysis shows improvements toward reducing the budget deficit and eliminating “scoop and toss” borrowing practices. This is the first year that the City has released the Annual Financial Analysis in an interactive online format. The analysis includes a general economic…
