Mayor Brandon Johnson forces Aldermenus to add urban food tax in Chicago as a long -term state food tax ends.
Johnson’s top financial leaders called on the Aldermeni soon to implement a fee at the Tuesday City Council’s income sub -meeting meeting. In the absence of a tax, Chicago 2026 The budget of the Chicago budget will make an additional $ 80 million hole, as the city is already facing a budget gap for about $ 1 billion, said Budget Director Annette Guzman.
“We have to re -confirm the food tax before the state,” Guzman said to nine aldermen at the meeting.
JB Pritzker said 1% of the sales fee for food goods is regressive and is harder to hit poor families when he announced it last year, even though the same state budget increased the increase in food tax by eliminating food tax. However, Print left the door to open the door to local authorities, which receive all tax revenue and independently implement the same tax.
In Illinois, more than 150 communities have decided to accept local food taxes, so many of Illinois residents have collected the same account for another institution; Johnson and the City Council have so far annulled a difficult decision, but must decide to implement it by October 1, that it will come into effect when the state fee will end next year.
“If we do not do the same, we will leave critical services on the cutting unit,” Guzman said.
The final term is closer than it seems. The legislation must still be introduced, likely to face opponents’ stands and must win the majority of the city council by the end of September, when the Aldermen plans to take their typical August holidays.
Guzman and other speakers also supported calls at a meeting in Chicago to receive a larger share of state income taxes and several reforms for state profit taxes. These amendments will require action from state laws publishers, who seem very unlikely to appear at any time at any time.
Johnson said the city would not “create” food tax in the early Tuesday if he decides to implement it because the state’s dissolution tax already exists.
“There is a process where the collection of food tax is now responsible for municipalities, right?” He said at the City Hall press conference. “So it was a function that the state of Illinois decided to refuse and leave it to the cities to collect taxes. So we do not create food tax, we are just creating the process we can collect it.”
The mayor’s progressive attempt to avoid wearing a jacket for a regressive food tax reflects the political difficulties he faces between the equilibrium city budget, and is considered to be the damage to the workers of the workers who he often pledges to make Chicago a more accessible city.
In accordance with cities such as Chicago with unpopular, but the necessary decision to implement food tax, Pritzker and the General Assembly were “headlines budget”, Ald. said William Hall.
“What we do is what the state did not have the courage to do,” said Hall, a close ally of Johnson and an income submission. “We need $ 80 million.
Johnson’s administration also urged the state to expand the state’s sales tax to include services, which was also confirmed by Joe Ferguson, president of the Civic Federation on Tuesday. He said the state’s dependence on 6.25% of the sales tax in Illinois is becoming less “economically competitive” than other states.
“Our sales tax system is created for the economy because it existed in 1960, which is why it is heavy, regressive and does not meet the financing needs and services currently required by our city and our region,” Ferguson said.
Guzman also called for expansion of the state’s sales tax, as well as directing services. The expanded fee would reduce the total sales tax rate, she added.
“City council, administration and our partners in business and non -profit communities to make these changes our reality, focus on the city council, administration and our partners,” she said.
It seems that the invitation of state lawmakers to change the taxation structure of the city is too late, at least this year. The General Assembly Spring Session ended on Saturday, closing a critical window where it is easier to pass laws.
“There is a bit of frustration that we are talking about some things the state can only do after the state has finished the conversation,” Ald. 40th Andre Vasquez.
However, Johnson’s chief financier Jill Jaworski said she suspects that state lawmakers could be forced to meet before the autumn veto session to sort a highly necessary transit funding plan to give the city an additional opportunity to lobby.
“We have to think about how there are ways we are now important to us, what we think is important?” she said. “There are many interviews with something, such as expanding service sales tax services.”