Mayor Emanuel criticizes 'tax scheme'

[mucifer]

Mayor Rahm Emanuel said Monday that Chicago businesses have designed a "tax scheme" to avoid paying their taxes.

Reacting to a story published Sunday by the Chicago Tribune, he criticized how some companies are routing transactions through outlying suburbs to avoid paying higher Cook County taxes.

"People are practicing a way of cheating the system. And there are people in (the) business of helping people cheat the system," Emanuel said. "There are companies doing work here in the city of Chicago who are literally designing, with high-priced lawyers and accountants, a system to circumvent the sales tax. That's not right. And it puts a further burden on the taxpayers, and that's not right."

http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/ct-biz-0823-company-taxes-20110823,0,1287736.story

I don't think former mayor Daley would do anything about this.

So I'm waiting to hear the whiney response from the corporations who will threaten to leave the city so they can go to Texas or somewhere where they don't pay high taxes and the public gets less services.

[GKirk]

1. He may in fact force their hands...

...and encourage them to move to the suburbs.
How much money do they save?

[mucifer]

2. It makes me sick this race to the bottom corporate greed.

We are the ones who suffer when they won't pay taxes.

[JVS]

3. Maybe Chicago shouldn't tax things in such a stupid manner.

Make sales tax the same as in other counties. Make up the revenue by taxing high end real estate (something that Chicago has and that isn't going anywhere).

[Romulox]

4. It's like a Mafioso crying "No Fair!" to the Don.

:shrug:

[mucifer]

5. No everyone should pay their taxes. Corporations shouldn't be exempt.

[JVS]

6. They are paying their taxes, in Kankakee because that's where they've decided to sell the stuff.

It's no different than if someone has a daily commute from Bolingbrook and they decide that they'll buy their weekly bottle of whiskey in Bolingbrook instead of downtown because they don't want to pay the extra dollar for the privilege of buying it in the city.