Taxes and Fees

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Parking Meters Company Posts Profit While City’s Bank is Low

This news segment details how the City of Chicago had only $2.7 million in reserves at the end of FY2009. The Civic Federation says the City should have cash reserves of at least $200 million given the size of its operating budget.

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Reasonable City Colleges Budget Lessens Impact on Taxpayers, But Lacks Specific Plan to Bridge Future Budget Gaps

The Civic Federation will announce its support for the proposed $581.9 million FY2011 City Colleges of Chicago budget at a public hearing today. The Federation’s 41-page analysis found that the proposed budget plans a $3.0 million…

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City Colleges of Chicago FY2011 Budget: Analysis and Recommendations

The Civic Federation supports the City Colleges FY2011 proposed budget totaling $581.9 million, which includes $454.4 million for the operating budget and $127.5 million for capital improvements. The City Colleges is proposing to reduce…

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New TIF Transparency Reforms Enacted

A tax increment financing (TIF) transparency bill (Public Act 096-1335) passed by the Illinois legislature in May and signed into law by Governor Pat Quinn on…

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Estimated Value of Cook County Real Estate Fell by $40.3 Billion in 2008

Updated August 5, 2010 to reflect revised data from the Illinois Department of Revenue CHICAGO – The full market value of real estate in Cook County was approximately $616.2 billion in tax year 2008 according to an annual estimate…

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Sales Tax Holiday Could Prove Complicated

Despite a $2 billion drop in the State’s annual revenues in FY2010 , the General Assembly passed Governor Pat…

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The Tentative 2009 Cook County Equalization Factor is 3.1062. What Does That Mean?

The Illinois Department of Revenue has announced that the tentative equalization factor for the Cook County 2009 property assessment year (taxes payable in late 2010) is…

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Cook County Sales Tax Falls by 0.5% Today

The sales tax rate on general merchandise in Cook County declines by 0.5 percentage point on July 1, 2010. This rolls back half of the 1.0 percentage point increase imposed by the Cook County Board of Commissioners effective July 1,…

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Sales Taxes: Reports and Projections

Last month the State of Illinois Commission on Government Forecasting and Accountability (COGFA) released a report entitled “…

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Is TIF the Solution to the Chicago Public Schools’ Budget Crisis?

  On June 15, 2010 the Chicago Board of Education approved measures to cope with the school district’s…