Tuesday, November 10, 2015

Hotel Tax and Ammunition Tax Added to Budget Considerations

2016 Cook County Proposed Budget:  Board Meeting, Nov. 9, 2015

The Cook County Board referred two proposed new taxes to the Finance Committee for consideration as part of the 2016 budget proceedings.  The Finance Committee is scheduled to meet on Friday, Nov. 13 at 1 pm to consider these new taxes, as well as other previously introduced new revenue sources.  This follows past practice whereby the Committee votes on revenue proposals first, then at a later date considers the budget as a whole.  This subsequent budget meeting is scheduled for Nov. 18.

President Preckwinkle, along with 8 Commissioners, is sponsoring a new ordinance that would impose a 1% hotel accommodation tax effective May 1, 2016.  Nine Commissioners are needed to pass this proposal.  During the Public Comment period, the General Manager of the Hyatt Regency Hotel, who is also on the Executive Committee of Choose Chicago, spoke against the proposed tax.  He stressed that the hotel tax will hurt Chicago in competing for conventions, whose main competition is with Orlando and Las Vegas which have hotel taxes of 12.5% vs. 17.5% which would result from this additional 1%.  Sixty-five percent of the business of his hotel is dependent on conventions.  Some Commissioners questioned whether the 1% increase ($1.85 per day on a room rate of $185) would really be a deterrent.  The speaker said that this increase would be a deterrent to those arranging conventions.

The other proposed tax, sponsored by President Preckwinkle and Commissioner Boykin, would impose a 5 cent per cartridge tax on centerfire ammunition, and a 1 cent per cartridge charge for rimfire ammunition, effective June 1, 2016.  The Executive Director of the Illinois Council on Handgun Violence urged that this tax be passed, stressing the costs being incurred by government and citizens to deal with gun violence.  The speaker said that people in Chicago incur $2.5 billion a year in costs attributable to medical, police, and judicial functions related to gun violence. 

-- Priscilla Mims, League Observer

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