Dish Tax Done

The controversial plan to levy a 9 percent amusement tax on 135,000 people who install satellite TV dishes is off the table. Daley had hoped to get around a federal law that bans cities from taxing direct-broadcast satellite services by asking the providers to turn over the names and addresses of customers so the city could levy the tax.

A member of the City’s legal team said:

"[Satellite companies are] prohibited from releasing any information about their customers, including names and addresses. If we can't ask satellite companies to collect local taxes and we can't find information about who their customers are to collect it directly, the ordinance is unenforceable."

The change will not impact the budget this year as no additional income was expected from the new ordinance passed last year. [S-T]