The following is an abbreviated version of an e-mail from reader Bob Darrow, who reports on real estate in the Windy City Guide:
On Monday, February 4th come to City Hall to testify at 10:00 AM!
The Chicago REALTORS® continue to oppose the Real Estate Transfer Tax increase with a major advertising and lobbying campaign and a consumer Web site, WrongTAX.com.
This 40% increase in the Real Estate Transfer Tax to pay for CTA Pensions will be introduced on Monday, February 4th at the Chicago City Council’s Finance Committee at 10:00 AM on the 2nd Floor at City Hall. This will be your only opportunity to testify against this 40% increase!
Please be prepared to spend the whole day downtown – so bring a lunch! The meeting is expected to take all day and we have no guarantees of when we will be able to testify. Let the Aldermen know how you feel about this tax and what it will do to your clients and your community.
Go to WrongTax.com to send an email to your Alderman.
I went on the site and emailed my Alderman… and called their office. This tax is a joke. My clients almost pass out when they see the transfer tax on their good faith estimates. I could see it justified if our property tax and sales taxes were lower in relative terms. But they are not.
I’ve paid the transfer tax twice… now, I would have to pay it again… only a ton more as my purchase price and the tax amount will go up? Why are we penalized for buying in the same city, sometimes the same neighborhood? We are already keeping our dollars here.
As homeowners, they already get our sales tax on a daily basis, we clean up the hood, we help the police by calling on crime, we historically and factual (according to housing studies) stabilize neighborhoods.
Wrong tax increase on the wrong people… it sucks. And to take from one pocket to make up for shortfalls of the dismal , bloated CTA… even worse. I think the heats on the CTA now so things will get better. But I’m going to pay the pensions of patronage workers of the last 30 years?
Eric,
CTA employees are largely not patronage workers. Patronage workers have the clout to not drive the buses or trains. Being a bus driver is a rotten job.
Now the CTA does have patronage types, but they make up a small part of their workforce.
The patronage types are largely “office” managerial people with a few ‘tradesmen” thrown in.