Nickeled and Dimed in Chicago

Last week, Chicago Public Schools officials announced that “the district will impose the maximum allowed increase to its property tax levy for the second year in a row.” While this amounts to an increase of just $28 for a $250,000 home, any Chicagoan will tell you that tax hikes have become the norm.

The great 2011 income tax increases of Illinois aside, Chicago also recently increased its tax on taxi cab rides by one dollar per pull, and Cook County increased its taxes on vehicle registrations and non-cigarette tobacco products. The city is now considering an increase in its soft drink tax, which already sits at 3 percent of the sale price. The proposed increase would set the tax at 15 to 35 cents per drink.

The City of Chicago’s list of taxes include:

While some of these revenue measures seem rather innocuous (such as the five cent tax per bottle of water sold), some of these provisions result in hefty tax burdens for all income groups. For example, the real property transfer tax on a $300,000 home amounts to a bill of $2,250 for the buyer and $1,350 for the seller. This tax is less-than-transparent, and is often sprung on unsuspecting first-time buyers when they begin shopping mortgages.

Hefty burdens do not end there. One of our recent studies found that Chicago imposes the second-highest tax rate on meals among major U.S. cities, and another found that thanks to a recent Illinois excise tax increase, Chicago has the second-highest cigarette excise tax rate in the country.

More on Illinois here.