In April 2016, the Illinois Department of Revenue announced that it discovered a misallocation totaling an estimated $168 million in extra Personal Property Replacement Taxes (PPRT) distributed to 6,527 local government taxing entities throughout Illinois. This misallocation equals 6% of the total $2.8 billion PPRT payments made to local governments in tax years 2014 and 2015. Each local government that received wrongful PPRT funding will need to refund the State beginning in 2017. Overview of…
One year after passing the Illinois General Assembly, a bill that puts the City of Chicago’s Police and Fire pension funds on a 40-year plan to reach 90% funding has become law. Illinois Governor Bruce Rauner vetoed the legislation after it was sent for his consideration on March 31, 2016, but the General Assembly voted to override the veto. Senate Bill 777 (now Public Act 99-0506), reduces by $220 million the first year of pension contributions Chicago would have been required to make under a…
The City of Chicago and Cook County recently joined a number of states nationwide in a move to exempt female hygiene products from the sales tax. At the Local Level On March 16, 2016 the Chicago City Council voted to exempt certain female hygiene products from Chicago’s Home Rule Municipal Retailer’s Occupation Tax of 1.25%. The City Council also passed two resolutions calling on the Illinois General Assembly and the Illinois Department of Revenue to reclassify female…
On March 24, 2016 the Illinois Supreme Court filed its opinion affirming the Cook County Circuit Court’s ruling that the reforms made to the City of Chicago’s Municipal and Laborers’ Pension Funds in Public Act 98-0641 were unconstitutional because they reduced pension benefits in violation of the pension protection clause of the Illinois Constitution. Background Public Act 98-0641, signed into law on June 9, 2014, made changes to pension benefit levels for current…
This annual brief provides a compilation of selected consumer taxes, including rates and descriptions, in place in the City of Chicago as of May 1, 2016. It includes such taxes as the sales tax, amusement tax, lease tax, hotel tax, liquor tax, restaurant tax, soft drink tax, wheel tax and parking tax.
Consumers of electronic cigarettes in the City of Chicago and Cook County as a whole will pay new taxes in 2016. As part of their FY2016 budget processes the City of Chicago and Cook County both expanded their taxes on tobacco products to include liquid nicotine products, also known as e-cigarettes. New Tobacco Related Taxes The City of Chicago’s FY2016 budget originally included a tax on liquid nicotine products at the rate of $1.25 per product unit, plus an additional $0.25 per fluid…
Short-term or current liabilities are financial obligations that must be satisfied within one year. They can include short-term debt, accounts payable, accrued payroll and other current liabilities. This blog post presents five-year trends for: 1) total short-term liabilities in the Governmental Funds, and 2) short-term liabilities as a percentage of operating revenues for the three largest local governments the Civic Federation regularly monitors and evaluates: the City of Chicago, Cook…
The following are the five most read posts presented by the Civic Federation blog in 2015. These posts examine a number of closely followed local government issues, ranging from City and County taxes to Chicago pension debt. Where Do Your Property Taxes Go? April 7, 2015 This blog post outlines how property taxes are distributed by describing how property tax dollars were proposed to be spent in FY2015 by the three largest governments in northeastern Illinois: the City of Chicago,…
FY2016 Budget Season Summary December 3, 2015 marked the end of the budget season for the eight local governments monitored by the Civic Federation. These governments include: the City Colleges of Chicago, Chicago Public Schools, City of Chicago, Cook County, Chicago Transit Authority, Forest Preserve District of Cook County, Metropolitan Water Reclamation District of Greater Chicago and Chicago Park District. Four of the seven governments that levy property taxes held their levies relatively…
This annual report compares estimated effective property tax rates in the six-county region of northeastern Illinois between 2004 and 2013, the last year for which data are available. Among the 12 selected Cook County communities that the Civic Federation analyzed, Harvey had the highest effective tax rate for residential properties at 8.08% in tax year 2013, and Chicago had the lowest residential rate in Cook County at 1.66% and the second-lowest of all 29 communities included in the…
