Click here to read the report.
In December the Civic Federation explored how Illinois, its local governments and other states tax recreational cannabis. In this post we will look at how those cannabis tax revenues will be spent by the State of Illinois and compare those priorities to other states. The Illinois Department of Revenue projects the State will collect $57 million in FY2020 from cannabis taxes and licensing fees and $140.5 million from taxes alone in FY2021, which starts July 1, 2020. But how will those revenues…
The Civic Federation recently released its annual Effective Property Tax Rates report. The report highlights that in 2017 property tax burdens for many communities in the Chicago region declined from the previous year. While analysis of the report often focuses on the 12 Cook County municipalities included in the study, this blog will examine the selected communities in the collar counties. An effective property tax rate is an estimate of the percentage of a property’s full market value owed in…
More than 50 years after Illinois began taxing residents’ income, voters in 2020 will decide whether the structure of the income tax should undergo a major change. The issue is highly controversial, and the decision will have a long-lasting impact on the State’s finances. Since Illinois’ income tax was adopted in 1969, the State has had a flat income tax. Although tax rates have varied over the years, every taxpayer has paid the same rate, which is currently 4.95%. That could change due to a…
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, shall not impose such a tax after that date.” While the City had a cigarette tax in 1993, it did not…
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, Cook County, the State of Illinois and federal government. This blog highlights the increases and…
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, but the FY2020 Cook County budget does not rely on any revenue from the new tax. Earlier this…
Now that the Cook County Forest Preserve District’s $124.7 million budget has been approved without the help of a referendum to increase property tax revenue, Forest Preserve District Commissioners acknowledge that the District’s serious financial challenges need to be addressed over the next year. A proposal for a countywide referendum that would have asked voters on the March 2020 primary ballot whether they supported a property tax increase was scrapped without a board vote after Forest…
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 increase to the City’s statutory contribution to the police and fire pension funds. The deficit is also…
2020 Civic Federation Legislative Priorities The Civic Federation's legislative priorities for 2020 include public employee pension reforms, consolidation of local government units in Illinois, enacting policies to rationalize the property tax system, 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…
