Chicago Sales Tax Increase

By Rachelle Bowden in News on Nov 3, 2004 3:54PM

Don't know about you, but our brain is taxed from this election. And speaking of taxed (ba-dump-ba), we are about to see a quarter percent increase in sales tax when Mayor Daley introduces his 2005 budget next week.

The $1.82 billion Skyway deal helped us, and we're being spared higher taxes on property, gasoline and water bills, but we're not so lucky when it comes to sales tax. The 9% tax will apply to pretty much everything and will give Chicago one of the highest sales tax rates in the US. New Orleans also has a 9% rate, but New York's is still at 8.625% and LA and Houston are at 8.25%. Boston's sales tax is only 5%, pretty low for a large-ish city.

So let's all move to Boston, where we can both secede from the Union with all of the other blue states, and pay a low sales tax.