So Much Heat Over RTA Sales Tax Hike Plan from a Typo

I see my typo generated a lot of heat yesterday on Illinoize while I was occupied elsewhere. From the comments, I sense that not a lot of people linked to McHenry County Blog's original story.

My calculations indicate that the RTA tax hike proposed by Democrat State Rep. Julie Hamos will cost McHenry County families about $200 a year, not the "$200 a month" that I mistakenly typed in yesterday's article.

That may be chump change to the folks in Chicago that want to pick suburbanites' pockets yet again, but out here we fight major battles when local tax districts want to raise our taxes $200 a year.

One other comment I found laughable.

It was about collar county residents should be happy that half of the tax hike will be be earmarked for our county boards to spend on highways. That's about $9 million for that square on the upper left hand corner of the Chicago TV's weather map.

If we want to raise our sales taxes by one quarter of one percent and earmark it for highways, we can follow Rockford's example and VOTE on that idea in a referendum. It might even pass.

I know Chicago-centric Illinoize commenters may be unfamiliar with the concept of people actually voting on tax hikes. But, you did it once way back in 1974. The official results show you won that RTA referendum, but there was demonstrable vote fraud and the timid new State Board of Elections would not allow a recount. You won by under 12,000 votes using paper ballots.

If you advocate increasing RTA taxes again, why not be big and bold and put your idea on the ballot?

But, you're not that bold, are you?

We in the collar counties don't need Chicago Democrats doing us the big favor of forcing our sales taxes up $100 a year to pay for roads the state has woefully neglected. (The potholes are on McHenry County's main north-south road, Route 31.)

Not that some of our local county board members wouldn't be delighted to have state legislators take the fall for raising taxes and giving them $9 million a year to spend on asphalt. (Or does the bill require the county board to vote to impose the tax?)

What follows is how I got to the $200 per year. If you want to challenge my logic, have at it. But have the decency to use source date from the Illinois Department of Revenue, as I did.

And, if you can find anyone else who has brought the price of this legislation down to what it would cost a local family, please tell me where to find the story or the analysis.

It's at least $18 million that will be picked out the pockets of McHenry County shoppers every 12 months if the General Assembly passes the half percentage point RTA-Road Sales Tax Hike.

To put that in perspective, $207 million was collected in sales taxes throughout the county this past year. So, the proposed sales tax increase would hike sales taxes 8.7%.

Previously, I estimated the increase would be at least 7.6% and pointed out how a local newspaper was helping the RTA to raise taxes with its headline. That calculation was based on using the tax rates. This one uses actual dollars.

If only the 89,403 McHenry County households paid the tax, it would amount to $231 a family. But, since businesses pay some sales tax, the figure per household will actually be less.

Maybe local folks won't care.

That’s certainly what the legislators behind this tax hike are hoping.

If the legislation becomes law, the Regional Transportation Authority will get another $9 million. About $100 per McHenry County family.

Almost half of the RTA’s McHenry County $9 million will go to the Chicago Transit Authority, according to Kevin Craver’s Northwest Herald article.

And the county board will get the same amount--$9 million--to spend, apparently as it wishes, on roads it wants to improve. That’s almost twice as much as $4.6 million collected in McHenry County Motor Fuel Taxes this past year.

The county board just decided to borrow $50 million to improve roads. If the $9 million per year were similarly bonded, an extra, what, almost $100 million could be spent on roads.