Cook County Tax Increases Pounded

The Chicago Tribune offers the best detailed analysis to-date of the impact that the tax increases being proposed will have on Cook County families.

Bottom-line:

Two-income family of four in Chicago will see a $670 increase in local taxes, or 6%.

Single retiree in Tinley Park will see an increase of $178 in local taxes, or 7%.

The analysis excludes income taxes paid, but lumps in state taxes and some federal taxes, which aren't going up.

When you focus only on taxes paid to local taxing bodies, the increases are:

Family of four: from $10,711 in local taxes to $11,381, an increase of 6.3%:

Retiree: from $1857 in local taxes to $2035, a 9.6% increase.



Stroger Utility Hikes Taking Even More Heat

While the Tribune ignored Stroger's secret plan to raise taxes on telephones, electricity and natural gas when/if his 2% sales tax increase goes down in flames, the Citizen's Utility Board isn't taking the plan lightly. At all.

CUB recently update their homepage with the theme "The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly", and it features a humongous "Stop Cook County Utility Tax" Logo.

The Bad!
Help Fight Cook County's Utility Tax Hike
There's a Cook County plan to jack up utility taxes, costing the average family $360 a year. Help us fight it! Please call 1-800-791-6540 to get connected directly to your county commissioner's office.

According to CUB, new phone taxes proposed by Stroger will cost the typical family $240 per year, and new taxes on electricity and gas will add another $124 to the typical family's energy bills.



NoPhoneTax.org Coalition reflects anti-Cook County sentiments

Launched less than a month ago, NoPhoneTax.org now includes more than 80 groups from across the political and apolitical spectrum, including AARP, CUB, Metro Seniors in Action, NAACP Chicago Southside, Americans for Tax Reform, the Chicagoland Chamber of Commerce, Illinois Retail Merchants Association, and what looks like for than two dozen churches.

Their website has had more than 62,000 hits, according to their home page ticker, and features a link for e-mailing the entire county board, as well as Board President Todd Stroger.

I've been doing campaign and grassroots organizing work long enough to realize that more than 60,000 hits in less than one month -- with no t.v. or radio ads to drive traffic, just earned media and word of mouth -- is unheard of. That is alot of anti-tax sentiment, which I would guess reflects opposition to not just the phone tax, but any tax increase by the Cook County Board.

Stroger would be wise to rethink his idea of raising any taxes, and Commissioners would have to be foolish to follow him down this path.